


midnight dancers

by josiebelladonna, xtinamoon (josiebelladonna)



Series: up all night [2]
Category: Anthrax (US Band), Bandom, Soundgarden (Band)
Genre: Angst and Romance, Background Relationships, Bad Dirty Talk, Dirty Jokes, Dirty Thoughts, Drinking, Edgeplay, Ephebophilia, F/M, Face Slapping, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Friendship/Love, Hand Jobs, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Indie Music, Jealous!Joey, Joey and Frankie have questions, Letters, Long-Distance Friendship, Love Triangles, Masturbation, Minor Violence, Multiple Orgasms, Not Suitable/Safe For Work, Oh My God, Older Woman/Younger Man, Punching, Romance, Romantic Comedy, Secrets, Sneaking Around, Underground Music Scenes, Unfinished Business, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Vaginal Fingering, in a bass-ackwards sorta way, no one has a clue what's happening, oh BOY do they have questions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:42:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 28
Words: 38,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23189437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josiebelladonna/pseuds/josiebelladonna, https://archiveofourown.org/users/josiebelladonna/pseuds/xtinamoon
Summary: (book two)The follow up to dreaming of you.There's a new cat in town, one who's got some unfinished business with darling Hannah. Meanwhile, Joey has questions, not just for her but for him as well. They're about to take each other to the seedy underbelly that is the music scenes in upstate New York... and Seattle.
Relationships: Ben Shepherd/Original Female Character, Joey Belladonna/Original Female Character
Series: up all night [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1662133
Kudos: 1





	1. the boy from another world

**Author's Note:**

> The fic's namesake is the song "Midnight Dancer" from Bible Black, the band Joey played in before he joined Anthrax. (Go look 'em up on YouTube, they fucking rock!)  
> This was inspired by an old Ben fic I wrote back in real late 2013 as well as local music scenes. It's something in my blood, like it's something I've been exposed to since I was in high school and the local radio station would promote local bands on some days after school.  
> In fact, that laid the groundwork to allow me to scout out the rest of the grunge scene, especially Ben's band Hater. While I was planning this one, I started looking more and more into the underground scenes in upstate New York: I actually remember thinking "this reminds me so much of the scene in Seattle" just from the tightly woven feel and the emergence of certain big names every so often.
> 
> I go more in depth here on the bulk version of this fic on my [Wattpad](https://www.wattpad.com/848350206-midnight-dancers-joey-belladonna-author%27s-note-and) if you're curious ;)
> 
> So this fic is an homage to roots of sorts: we all have them. We all came from somewhere😘

_October 10, 1986_.

“You guys know my birthday is in three days.”

The five of them had ventured to Ithaca, all the way into the very heart of upstate New York, to do some mastering on the new album. Quite the tedious task, much to Joey's chagrin: he had done it twice before with _Armed and Dangerous_ and _Spreading the Disease_ , but he found himself itching to go out. Whether going out concerned Hannah and Francine, or even to one of the little cafes and places there for a drink and something to eat. Add to this, it was a Friday night, albeit the Friday prior to Joey's twenty sixth birthday, and thus it made sense to go out on break for the time being.

But then again, Hannah and Francine had returned to Rochester, back to their cozy little homes while the boys had to tend to their new album, and Joey itched to head out after having been bunked in the studio for five long hours. They congregated in the front room of the building to fetch their coats; Scott and Charlie wanted nothing more than to head back to their hotel rooms for the night.

“That's right, you were born on Friday the Thirteenth,” Danny declared, wagging a finger at him.

“Thursday the Thirteenth,” Joey corrected him. “I don't really wanna go out alone, though.”

“And that sucks, too,” Frankie joined in, “spending your birthday all by yourself.”

“Yeah, whatever you wanna do, I'll hang with ya, Joe,” Charlie assured him as he ran a hand over his nappy bangs.

“Yeah, count me in, too,” said Frankie as he tucked his hands into his coat pockets.

“Alright, birthday boy,” Scott said as he ran a hand through his fluffy dark hair. “What would you like to do? And we're in your neck of the woods, too, so be our tour guide for us.”

Joey hesitated for a moment once he had buttoned up his overcoat.

“Well, let's see,” he started as he tucked a curly lock of inky black hair behind his ear, “when I was starting out in the music world, I played in a bunch of small bands, like the one I played in before joining you fellas was Bible Black. When I wasn't playing, I went to small shows around Oswego and Rochester. That was just part of the whole deal—if you wanted to be in a band, you looked out for everyone else and you helped out each other, you know? And—”

He turned around to peer out the glass front door to the cluster of little bars across the way; the one with a pink neon sign in the window caught his eye as it reminded him of the place up in Plattsburgh. The place where Carl had found him and brought his attention to Anthrax and the thrash scene.

“You wanna go see if there's a band playing tonight,” Scott followed along; Joey turned back around to see him with a big grin plastered on his face; he raised his eyebrows to soften his face a bit.

“I don't see why not,” Scott replied with a shrug of his slender shoulders, “—grab a cup of coffee and a bite to eat all the while, too.”

Without anymore hesitation, Joey pushed the door open and held them for his band mates.

Ithaca was one of those towns that straddled a rather vast body of water, granted this one was Cayuga Lake, one of the largest of the eleven cold water Finger Lakes. Indeed, the waning sunlight and incoming night had painted the sky a rich royal violet; the lake waters off to their right were icy and black with the impending autumnal darkness. Joey huddled down in his coat as he led the four of them across the dark street to the sidewalk on the other side. A light lick of a chilly breeze sent a shiver down his spine.

Once again, he held the door for them as they filed into the dim lit club, where they had “Velvet Goldmine” blasting over the record player off in the corner. To the left stood a ramshackle wooden bar with spindly black stools that looked as though they were held together with black electrician's tape. Across the floor was an array of low black tables topped with rich red glasses holding candles. Joey half expected the ceiling overhead to be populated with bats granted the room smelled odd: a strange combination of cleaner and Jagermeister to where it made him recoil back towards the door. He caught glimpse of a sign behind the bar decreeing a two drink minimum and anyone could come in there until midnight, when the kitchen closed.

There were a few people congregated around the stage on the far side of the room.

“Looks like the band's about to come on?” Danny pointed out. Indeed, a few young, barely old enough kids took to the stage: the one up front was a tall, sturdy boy with shoulder length hair and the first sprigs of a mustache over his upper lip. He gave his hair a gentle toss back and reached for his shabby hot pink bass guitar which he had plugged into the cheesy little amp off to the side. Joey felt a tap on his shoulder and he turned to see Frankie leaning closer to the side of his face.

“The bass player reminds me of Cliff,” he muttered into his ear, and Joey nodded at him. He knew Frankie would miss Cliff for however long it took, especially since his last words to him before the accident were “I'll see you tomorrow.”

They directed their attention back to the stage, where another boy, another one who towered tall over the small crowd before them. He had a short haircut of black hair and bit of a sour look on his face. Scott started chuckling under his breath.

“What?” Charlie asked him.

“He's like a punk rock toy,” Scott laughed.

“A punk rock vibrator,” Danny added and the five of them burst out laughing. Within mere seconds, the record player fell quiet and the boy at the front strummed his beat up guitar.

“ _I had a dog_ ,” he sang in a sharp voice, “ _he was a mix. He loved me like a God, but I was just a kid. The kind mother likes—now I'm big like the sky!_ ”

Charlie and Frankie flashed one another with knowing glances.

“Damn,” Joey said aloud.

“Yeah, they're tight!” Scott declared, and then he wagged a finger at Danny. “Don't even think about it.”

Frankie and Joey giggled in unison. But their sound was big and bold and fast, abrasive like the hardcore punks who preceded the five of them. They were loud enough to beckon more patrons into the club behind the five of them. By the bridge, the five of them clustered closer to the bar to make way for everyone else. Charlie even banged his head a bit at one point near the end of that first song.

The boy at the front pushed a stray lock of black hair towards the top of his head so it had bit of a curl to it.

“Thanks, Ithaca,” he said in a broken monotone of a voice that echoed through the room. “I'm Ben Shepherd—this is my band. We're called March of Crimes and we're from Seattle.”

“Seattle!” Scott declared.

“Long way from home,” Frankie noted.

“And—” the boy continued. “We're working on our first EP at the moment, and our artwork is courtesy of a local artist. You might've heard of her—she's from nearby Rochester. And this is pretty huge for us, actually. The artwork is courtesy of my girlfriend Hannah Ellsberg, better known as Xtina.”

A few people near the front applauded, and one person let out a loud whistle. But the five of them gasped: Frankie, Charlie, Scott, and Danny gaped over at Joey. His heart skipped several beats. The world seemed to stop before him.

“What,” was all he could muster from his dark lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics from Never Named by Soundgarden


	2. at the bar

Joey leaned back against the bar with his elbows up on the edge. Danny had taken his seat next to him; Frankie and Charlie were to the right of him, while Scott took the spot on the far end. Joey let his black curls sprawl over the top of his shoulders and his collar bones. His stomach turned and his heart sank in his deep chest. He even rested a hand on his slim belly to ease the sick feeling, but it was useless.

Not even a glass of club soda with a twist of lemon could ease the feeling. His fingers twitched over his flat stomach from his pulse surging. He couldn't breathe.

Oh, God.

His best friend cheated on him. Those fingers that had touched his face, twirled through his ringlets, felt his body and made him feel beautiful, loved him… turned to another boy. A younger, skinnier boy with a sharper image.

How?

HOW!

Unless she lied to him about what went down on her end during their break from one another, it made no sense. He had dated two other girls but he knew Hannah was his one and only. Why and how on Earth would this boy declare her as his girlfriend?

The dim light kept the distant look on his handsome face hidden from view, but the light was not enough to hide his observation.

Frankie made a joke about something but Joey paid no attention to it. He watched March of Crimes congregate over at the one table about five feet away from them. The drummer, a small kid with the fledgling sprigs of dreadlocks on his head, and Ben had their backs turned to him. Joey looked down at his hand resting on his stomach and his slim waist.

What was he thinking? That this boy was skinnier than him? He was more slim: he thought back to their first encounter there in the Bronx. Her fingers on his hip bones, her lips on his dark skin…

The quiet place back home there in Oswego. And the new quiet place there under the sheets with her. They shared that silence together to hear each other's heart and feel each other's skin. They shared that silence only for him to sing her to sleep and for her to draw his body.

They had seen each other from the inside out.

It made no sense: she was his best friend. His best friend forever. The first girl he ever loved. His first kiss and aside from his mom and his grandmother, the first girl he ever held.

She even cried in front of him!

He glared at the back of Ben's head, at that mop of wiry black hair. Another crown of black hair, but one without the wispy ringlets and the tight curls, and even the stray split ends. One that wasn't a full mane of lush hair.

He lifted his gaze to across the table to catch view of the bassist taking a bite of something dark.

Every so often, over the chatter of the bar around them and Frankie and Charlie conversing about something, he caught a glimmer of their conversation.

“I think I'm high—” said the bassist, and Ben and the drummer broke out into laughter. Joey nibbled on his bottom lip. He didn't want to feel angry towards that boy, Ben. He needed to talk to her. He needed to make the drive up to Rochester to speak to Hannah about all of this.

Ask her questions. Play twenty questions with her. Ease her into it so as to not be so jarring.

He reached behind him for the glass of club soda resting on the bar. It was the only thing to settle his poor stomach.

He tipped the glass back towards his dark lips and took a large drink. The lemon helped bring that tangy flavor to an otherwise plain glass of water: add to this, he wanted to feel something. He brought the glass down to his chest and kept his eye on Ben, who held a glass of something dark that resembled stout.

 _I wonder how old he is_ , Joey thought to himself. _He looks a little young to be drinking_.

He nibbled on his bottom lip again and peered down at his slender toned thighs. He craved for a round of kisses in between his thighs before a nice little blowie. A nice little blowie involving that boy.

 _Suck my dick, you little shit_. He couldn't resist it. Five feet separated them from each other. But little did Ben know, he sat across from the cuckolded man. As dirty and primitive as a kid sitting in his bedroom thumping away on a drum kit from the Sears catalog, and the very underbelly of the underground scene there in upstate New York. As dirty and primitive as a teenage boy running around a skating rink with razor blades on the soles of his feet and a hard stick in hand.

But he had to get with her first before he did anything to him.

He took another sip of club soda and tasted the twist of lemon on the inside there.

“The Lemon Song” came on the record player in the corner at that moment. He thought back to when he first listened to _Led Zeppelin II_ on his uncle's record player, and it had been one of his favorites since that time. Ben on the other hand, groaned and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Hey, Billy, could you change the music?” he said to the dreadlocked drummer. “I can't stand Zeppelin.”

Joey nodded his head right then. Of course. Terse punk rock boy had a strong dislike for the extravagance and the decadence.

Danny said something and Frankie took a spit take from laughing so hard. Joey started laughing to himself, but not from the joke. He took another sip of club soda to taste the lemon, as tangy and sharp as Ben himself.


	3. twenty questions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"Don't you know I'm no good for you?  
>  I've learned to lose you, can't afford to.  
> Tore my shirt to stop you bleedin',  
> but nothin' ever stops you leavin'."_  
> -"when the party's over", Billie Eilish

It would be some time that evening before Joey could return to his room there in town, granted the boys had finished their drinks and had their fill of bread. Every so often, he peered up at the ceiling and still half expected to find bats hanging down from the rafters up there. He couldn't explain it but the tiny holes in the ceiling made him think of bats. Tiny little bats to assist him in his plan.

Once the five of them pitched in paying for their drinks, they headed back out to the chilly October night, where the sky had painted as black as their heads of hair. The crown of ringlets atop Joey's head fluttered in the light moist breeze, enough to send a shiver down his spine and hunch his shoulders up towards his ears.

“Shall we—” Scott brought a hand to his mouth to stifle a hiccup.

“Joe's the designated—designated drinker?” Danny stammered with a giggle.

“Gah, if only,” Joey laughed as he tucked his hands into his coat pocket.

“So where's the hotel at?” asked Charlie with a punch drunk grin on his face.

“Follow me,” Joey coaxed them, “come on, you guys—follow me.”

He led them back across the street, albeit with Scott and Danny laughing their heads off and Frankie with his arm around Charlie to keep his balance.

Prior to reaching the hotel lobby, Danny fell onto his side and burst out laughing. Joey hung there before the lobby doors with his hands still in his pockets, but he couldn't help but laugh himself. The only sober one of the five of them—but Frankie looked rather lucid himself. And yet he couldn't help but laugh all the way up to the room.

He unlocked the door and held it open for his four band mates as they staggered inside.

Scott and Danny fell onto the bed closest to the door: the former landed on his side and with a large giddy smile on his face, the latter face down next to him. The bed sheets muffled his laughter.

“Hey, Joey, you know you're a beautiful guy right?” Charlie laughed as he took a knee on the floor in between the beds.

“Yeah, so are you, Charlie,” Joey told him as he closed the door and set the room key down on the table next to the TV. He peeled off his coat right as Frankie guided Charlie down to the floor on the sleeping bag with a gentle cooing of “—now just lay down and go to sleep, alright?”

Once Charlie lay on the floor, Frankie lifted himself up to his feet and took off his coat. Joey could tell he was tipsy but not quite at the level of losing his liquor like the other three. He watched Frankie take off his shoes and his shirt, but he gave up removing his pants, and thus he lay face down on the bed, on the side closest to the window, with his feet pointed at the head board.

Joey himself, meanwhile, fetched up a sigh.

God.

He let out a long low whistle before he took off his clothes and crawled into the bed, right next to Frankie and the nightstand. He was about to switch off the light when he spotted a narrow pad of blank white paper there on the top of the stand.

He was alone. His four friends had fallen asleep after a round of drinking. Now was his chance to write out what he wanted to ask Hannah.

He picked up the white pen there next to the clock and the notepad, and raised up his knees so he could have something to write on.

But once he held the pen tip over the paper, he froze. His mind had gone blank.

What happened? When he sneaked into the art gallery that night, he totally improvised everything he had said on that tape. It all came roaring out of him like a wave. He thought back to his motive, in particular the one where if he could lay there on the table on his back with his shirt open and his black curls sprawled out from his head, he would.

But then again, he had had a couple of glasses of hooch that night. He did it on a whim and there was no way he could even lay there even though he wanted to.

However, on this night, this time around, he lay on his back under the covers with no shirt on and it was a much different context at that point. He kept his knees up as he struggled to write down what sort of questions he wanted to ask her. Add to this, he was the birthday boy, and he wanted nothing more than to have a moment alone with Hannah.

Her name rhymed with “banana”.

 _Why it took me so damn long to realize that is beyond me_ , he thought to himself as he took a peek under the covers at his slender toned thighs. His dark skin was as smooth and soft as melted butter, or rather like her lips.

 _If I have to jack off for this, I will_ , he thought to himself. He thought of bananas, especially the big ripe one in between his thighs.

He rolled his head over the pillow to see the silhouette of Frankie's feet resting on the pillow next to his head. Joey nibbled on his bottom lip as he returned his attention to his thighs. He reached down his shorts to feel himself. His skin there was even softer and silkier. Using his other hand, he set the notepad on the nightstand; his tongue slithered out of his mouth as his fingers crept around his shaft.

He pursed his lips together to keep his groans and moans inside of him. The last thing he wanted was to wake up Frankie. Charlie was down on the floor underneath the side of the bed and had gone out like a light. He breathed a little bit harder and heavier to better take in the feeling.

He relaxed with his own touches. He fixated on Hannah.

There was no way he could feel angry with her. Surely there had to be an explanation for this. They could figure this one out together.

But he had to play twenty questions with her. And the only way he could do such a thing was if he relaxed and let that flow through him. He groaned in his throat as he fondled himself deeper.

“I still wanna fuck her silly while all of Syracuse is watching,” he muttered to himself as he gazed on at the notepad there on the nightstand.

“Huh?” Scott called out to him.

“—I think Joe's talking in his sleep again, Scott,” Danny whispered, his speech slurring.

That was it!

Joey parted his dark lips and let out a quiet sigh. He then reached over the notepad again.

He was quick to write it all down and stuff the notepad underneath his pillow. He had it in the bag: he was sure of it once he reached up to turn off the light.


	4. the explanation

“So you're gonna do that with her?” Scott asked Joey as he climbed into the driver's seat of the car. He and Danny in particular were hungover with coffee and toast being their sole source of recovery.

“Yeah—” he replied, tucking the notepad into his coat pocket. “—it's bit of a drive going up to Rochester from here, but I'll be back soon enough.”

Joey flashed them a wink and then he closed the door, and fired it up. It was in fact a bit of a drive up there, a hundred minutes of venturing around the glassy black waters of Cayuga Lake and the lush wilderness interspersing through upstate New York and past the migraine inducing loop of freeways that surrounded Syracuse. Each passing mile he felt himself growing more and more primitive and protective. He thought of what he had written down on the notepad the night before, and even looked it over when he stopped for fuel in Geneva.

He would always love Hannah no matter what happened. She was his best friend and the first girl he ever fell for. But it all felt so confusing. Why would she go with another man, let alone another man from clear across the country?

It made no sense, and it only made less sense as the Rochester skyline entered his view.

He wound his way through the cozy little side streets towards her apartment complex. He passed Francine's complex and he wondered if she knew anything about it. If Hannah could tell him nothing about it, he would have to turn to her. If all else fails, he can keep it a secret between him and her.

Joey soon arrived at her complex and parked at the curb.

He pushed the button next to the front door to ring her buzzer.

“Yeah?” Her voice flowed out of the little white speaker into the chilly crisp morning air.

“It's me,” he called back.

“Oh, hi! Come on up—” There was a soft _click_ to his right and the front door unlocked. Joey made his way inside.

He trekked to her apartment and pushed open the front door, which she had left ajar for him. She stood there in her kitchen holding a glass of what resembled ginger ale: she had donned herself in a little black dress with a low neckline and some silver diamonds around the waist. He had forgotten how good she looked, not only in black but with a low neckline like that to bring attention to her chest. She beamed at him: her dangling bead earrings only accentuated her smile.

“Hey, you! Want some ginger ale?”

“I'd love some, thank you.”

 _Especially after last night, hell yeah_ , he thought to himself as he took off his coat and hung it up on the hook next to the front door. He took a seat at the bar as she poured him a glass of fresh ginger ale with three ice cubes mixed in.

“It's funny, I was thinking,” she started as she handed him the glass, “since Monday is your birthday—maybe you and I can hang out together all weekend? That is if you've got nothing going on.”

“Well, let's see,” he began, holding onto the glass, “today's Saturday. You know, we're working on our new album—the offices are closed, so I don't see why not.”

“And since today's Saturday—and you just so happened to show up at the right time—let's get this party started shall we?”

“Please!” He gestured to her.

“Francine and I are gonna bake you a cake tomorrow,” she told him as she took a sip of ginger ale. “But for now—what would you like to do, birthday boy?”

“Let's start by playing some games,” he said, his stomach turning a bit. He immediately regretted saying that.

“Okay! What would you like to play?”

He paused for a second to make it look like he was thinking.

“Twenty questions? We can move onto something else afterwards.”

“Okay. Uh—since it's your weekend, I'm gonna let you go first. Is it a person?”

“Yes.”

“Is it a woman?”

“No.”

“A man?”

“Yes.”

“Is he a musician?”

“Yes.”

“Is he older than you?”

“No.”

“Is he younger than you?”

“I think?”  
“You think?”

“Yes.”

She squinted her eyes at him. He never changed his expression for her.

“You don't know if he's—younger than you?”

“Yes.”

“Is—it someone close to you?”

“No.”

“Is—it someone close to me?”

“Maybe.” He pursed his lips together again. “That is, if you wanna explain to me who the hell Ben Shepherd is.”

Her mouth hung agape. He raised his dark eyebrows at her. His brown eyes were large and glassy as if staring hard into her soul. His heart started to pound inside of his chest again.

“It's a long story,” she replied in a small voice.

“Yeah? And?” He could hardly contain the trembling in his voice.

“And?” she echoed.

“And?” he continued the echo. “It's a long story. You might as well start from the very beginning.”

“But—your birthday, though,” she pointed out.

“Hannah, don't—” He showed her his tongue as he was a serpent. He clinched his fist there on the counter top. “—don't fucking divert attention from what I'm asking you. Tell me the truth.”

She swallowed. Joey's body shook and quivered with anger, and yet his eyes burned with tears.

“Hannah—we've seen each other. I need to know what you've been doing with him. Tell me. I demand—” His lip trembled as his voice broke. “—to know the full story.”

She fetched up a sigh and stood to her feet. It was the very sight of his handsome face twisting with such strong emotion that could perhaps coax every ounce of truth out of her.

“Okay. Joey—listen to me and listen to me once. He was this young guy whom I had met while on business over in Seattle—when you and I were separated. He walked by the little shop I was commissioned to work in and he walked in. We talked for a little bit and he invited me out to lunch. Granted, we were separated. You and I were not seeing each other. So I told him I was single, and then he told me he was engaged to his high school sweet heart.”

He knitted his eyebrows together.

“Seriously?” he asked, his voice filled with tears.

“Seriously. And yet, he was more than happy to take me out. I asked him how old he was and he told me he had just turned seventeen.”

He raised his eyebrows at that.

“Yeah. He was seventeen, Joey. He's probably eighteen now, but yeah. Here I am, in my mid twenties seeing a teenager for coffee. A teenager who's fucking engaged!”

“Well—why didn't you just turn him down?” he sputtered.

“First of all, like I said, we were separated then,” she said, terse. “And besides, you went out with two girls yourself when we were separated.”

“Yeah, but they were our age, though!” he pointed out.

“Well, I didn't know he was that young until I asked him, Joey!” she exclaimed. “And second, he wasn't wearing a ring. I didn't know he was with anyone until he said it. I swear to you, Joey.”

She shifted her weight and pressed her hands to her hips.

“Now, I have a question for you—Joseph Bellardini,” she began again, curt. “How do you know who he is? How did you find out about him?”

“The guys and I went to a club last night for a drink down in Ithaca and his band played there,” he confessed in a single breath. “He spoke to the audience and said you were his girlfriend.”

She frowned at that.

“He—He did?” She seemed genuinely surprised by that.

“Yeah. I heard it with my own two ears. Scott, Danny, Frankie, and Charlie all heard him, too. That's five against one. So you better give me some more explaining or so help me.”

“Where the fuck did he pull that from?” she muttered, turning her head to the side.

“You're asking me?” he demanded, befuddled. “You're asking me that?”

“No! But I'm just wondering why he would pull that, though.”

“Probably because he thinks that or there's something here that you're not telling me—” His voice broke again and this time, he brought a hand to his eyes to shield the sight of the tears from her.

“Joey,” she started in a more gentle tone. “Joey, listen to me—” She set a hand on his shoulder but he pushed her away.

“No!” he cried, showing her the tears in his eyes. She cried in front of him, but this was the first time he ever cried in front of her.

“No! You're—fucking—seeing someone else. You're with him. Admit it! Admit it, God damn it!”

“I'm not, Joey!” she argued. “I'm not seeing him! I don't know why he would call me his girlfriend! We met for lunch a few times and he often came by the gallery. But there was never anything sexual between us. I swear to you” She clasped her hands to his shoulders. “I swear to you—my hand on our grandparents' ashes in the quiet place. I swear to you!”

She gazed into his face as the tears streamed down from his big brown eyes. He could see she was crying, too. She was telling the truth. She was just as lost as him.

He bowed his head and wept.

“Oh, fuck—come here, baby—come here—” She held his head right into her chest. He closed his eyes and let the tears fall onto her shirt. He loved her softness: he didn't want to let go of her. She stroked the back of his head and even kissed him there on the top. All the while, she muttered to herself in a broken voice, “why does he think that? What is he thinking?”


	5. business letters

Joey took another drink of ginger ale and wiped away the remaining tears in his eyes. He fetched up a sigh, albeit a rather shaky one. He didn't know what to believe right then. Granted, Hannah had told him the truth and nothing but the truth, he couldn't help but feel a tiny ray of doubt in the back of his mind.

Something still off. Something he couldn't exactly put his finger on such that it ate away at him.

He ran his fingers through his black curls to keep them off of his neck and his shoulder, but it was useless. He still felt all too warm to the touch.

“Joey?” Hannah called from the next room. He closed his eyes.

“Joey?” she repeated.

“What,” he said in a flat tone. He heard papers rustling.

“Here, Joey—I'll show it to you if you want further proof.”

He lifted his head to see her approaching him with a handful of envelopes. She set them down before him and fanned them out as if she was presenting him a hand of cards.

“What's all this?” he asked her, his voice breaking some more.

“These are business letters that Ben wrote to me when we were trying to negotiate a commission of sorts.”

Each of the envelopes appeared pristine, as if they had never been opened before.

“I still don't believe it,” he blurted out.

“I slit them open at the side and then retaped them—see?” She picked up the one closest to her and showed it to him. Clear boxing tape closed off the open end which he assumed had been cut open with scissors.

“I swear to you, Joey. There was never anything romantic or erotic between me and him.”

He closed his eyes and bowed his head. Maybe this kid wanted attention and maybe he wanted nothing more than to give her some attention. Maybe, maybe not. It made no sense to him that this kid could treat her like this. And yet all Joey could do was let the tears beckon forth again.

“Fuck,” was all he could muster from his dark lips.

“What?” she asked him in a gentle voice.

“I feel really stupid now.”

“No. No, don't. You didn't know and I should've told you before when you called me a couple of nights ago. It's my fault—I should've said something.”

He leaned the side of his head against her stomach. She put her arm around him like a mother holding her son against her body.

“Tell you what,” she started again, “I'll call him because we exchanged numbers as part of business, and I'll see if I can talk to him. I'll see if I can smooth things over and we can do this without—you know. Killing each other.”

Joey sighed through his nose. As nice as that all sounded, he had no idea what he wanted.

“In the meantime, though,” she continued, stroking his shoulder, “let’s focus on one thing and one thing only. The fact it’s your birthday in a couple of days.”

“Chocolate cake,” he muttered.

“You want chocolate?” she asked him.

“Yes, please.”


	6. too much chocolate cake

_October 12, 1986_.

“Well, we'll just have to stir with our hands!”

It was almost eleven o'clock at night and Hannah and Francine raced to finish Joey's birthday cake before he arrived there at the apartment complex once again. They had asked him to leave for the afternoon so it could be a surprise for him. Meanwhile, Joey had strode about the streets of city of Rochester with his hands in his coat pockets and his head bowed to protect his face from the chilly lake breeze. He had gone to a clothing shop for a new belt and some new Chuck Taylors for himself. Surely, if Hannah had been there with him, it'd be better, but he had no choice.

There was a small book shop near the complex that served coffee—can't go wrong with a cup of Joey, he thought to himself.

Granted, although he was alone for the time being, he peered about the block around the art gallery and showed it a small smile. There was something so liberating about having Hannah draw him and his band mates, and there was something even more so liberating about letting her watch him cry in front of her. He knew how she felt at that point.

He turned his head to the left and noticed a little dive bar with a sketchy looking neon sign in the front window.

The rough, unpolished sound of live music caught his ear as he neared the door of this little place.

Late at night on a Sunday. It reminded him of the times he played in bands throughout high school, all the times he drummed and sang before those tiny little crowds. The fact his toes and his waist ached a bit from his new shoes and new leather belt helped matters.

And then he realized something.

He was the only one in Anthrax who paid any dues whatsoever. And wherever Ben ran off to, if he took on a new venture into another band, that is if he felt passionate enough, he would've paid his dues as well.

Of course.

Indeed, he recognized that sharp voice from the inside there. Joey pushed open the door with his free hand to find there in the dingy dim lit bar was not one, but two bands playing in there. The first was March of Crimes, which he spotted almost immediately, congregated over in the far corner of the room on a tiny makeshift stage of sorts. The other, two girls on acoustic guitars sitting on stools with fedora hats atop their heads, congregated to his right on the edge of the room. March of Crimes had a rough, abrasive sound which blanketed the whole room in a wall of noise; he could barely hear the two girls on their acoustic guitars right next to him.

He gazed on at Ben, who jutted up from the crowd on the far side of the room like an overgrown weed.

Maybe he was a bit too hard on him the first time around. He was just a kid after all, a baby, like how Joey himself was still a kid, even there on the eve of his twenty sixth birthday.

He wove his way through the crowd and approached the stage until he was a mere few feet from Ben himself. His dark hair glistened with sweat under the bright blue lights casting down from the ceiling overhead: a few strands stuck to the sides of his face. Joey could smell liquor and marijuana wafting off of the stage.

But he was fixated merely on the sight of the boy before him, as he played away on his guitar and sweat at such profuse levels as he belted out into the microphone before him.

Of course. Of course!

Ben lifted his head and gazed right into Joey's brown eyes as he sang into the head of the microphone. He could feel it between the two of them, that sensation of two dogs ready to fight one another: one was unforgiving, one had no idea what he was in for. But which one was which?

Joey swallowed down the nervous sensation rising up within him. Those brilliant eyes glared into his soft brown ones.

 _Two halves make a whole, little man_ , he thought as he hoisted the shoebox under his arm.

Once they reached the end of their song, the crowd behind him erupted into applause. They were so loud compared to the two girls on the far side of the room that he wondered if they were still playing.

He turned his head to not only peer over his shoulder but for Ben to make note of his side profile. He returned to a stare straight ahead to find him examining his face, from his crown of lush black curls to his nose to his dark lips and dimpled chin.

Like looking at the hardened, whitened version of himself.

Ben showed him a sneer and a frown. Joey nibbled on his bottom lip as he backed away from the edge of the stage. It would be best to not start something here, and he knew it and Ben knew it.

He doubled back towards the door, past the two girls who were still playing there on the other side of the room. He headed out of the bar and back out the night right as the rains came in for him. Joey kept the shoebox close to his body as he made his way back to Hannah's apartment.

He rang the buzzer and waited a moment.

“Yeah?” she called out through the speaker.

“It's me!” he shouted over the winds.

“Alright, come on up, birthday boy!” she declared as Francine let out a chuckle in the background. The front door unlocked and Joey darted inside of the front lobby right as the worst of the rains pounded the street behind him. He made his way up to her room where the two of them awaited him for the evening. First he was greeted by that warm lush aroma of chocolate cake straight out of the oven. Hannah threw her arms around him and gave him a big soul kiss, so big he dropped the shoebox onto the floor.

“Well, don't suffocate him, Hannah,” Francine teased her. She let go of Joey's lips to show him a sweet smile and to run her fingers through the black curls on the side of his head.

“Want some cake?” she offered him.

“Do I want some cake? Is that a rhetorical question?” he teased her.

Hannah burst out laughing. But he knew she was serious once Francine began slicing up the two tier devil's food cake with dark chocolate frosting and white chocolate chips on the top.

He helped himself to two large slices, the second of which came with Hannah's coaxing.

“You tryin' to fatten me up?” he scoffed as he held the plate close to his chest.

“Hey, you got this cute little double coming in under your chin, babe,” she pointed out as she touched the smooth patch of skin underneath his chin with two finger tips.

“You're tryin' to fatten me up, aren't you,” he chided.

“She just wants her skinny little baby to pig out a bit is all,” Francine insisted as she took her seat to the left of him.

“Eh, you only turn twenty six once, I s'pose,” he figured as he picked up the fork again. It didn't help matters that the cake was quite rich and filling but Joey managed to eat the whole thing.

“I think I've had too much,” he confessed, hiccuping and setting a hand on his slim tummy, which felt a little too full at that point.

“Yeah, but you haven't had your fair share of it all yet, birthday boy,” Hannah teased him. She ran a finger down his chest and snuggled close to him. She kissed the side of his neck. “Happy birthday, baby. Having some fun right now while your parents aren't around.”

“For sure, Hannah, babe—” He hiccuped again when Francine spoke up.

“So I couldn't help but notice that you smell like booze, Joe.”

“Yeah, I went to a bar to catch some live music,” he explained as Hannah ran her hand down his stomach. “Gave March of Crimes another chance.”

“March of Crimes?” asked Francine.

“Yeah. You've heard of them?”

“I have, actually. Ben and Hannah went out for a bit, and then he and I went out for a bit.”

Hannah and Joey both froze, and they turned to look at one another with their mouths agape. The chocolate cake began to feel heavy inside of his stomach, such that it made his eyelids heavy in turn. But at least he could ask another question within his mind.

“Okay—now I'm confused,” he confessed.


	7. someone else's bed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"Kiss me in the D.A.R.K. dark tonight,  
>  D.A.R.K. do it my way.  
> Kiss me in the P.A.R.K. park tonight,  
> P.A.R.K. let them all say..."_  
> -"Lolita", Lana Del Rey

"Okay, Francine," Hannah said with a sigh. "Start from the beginning for us."  
"I started seeing him when you and him were going to lunch together," she explained; Francine lowered her gaze to Joey's hand as it ran over his slim belly. He had eaten all that cake but now perhaps hearing this was upsetting his stomach a little bit. But then again, it made sense, especially after the scare he had had with Hannah before.  
"And... he thought I was you," she continued.  
"He thought your name was Hannah?" asked Hannah.  
"Yeah. He kept calling me Hannah."  
Joey then turned his head to her and showed her a perplexed look.  
"Did he ever call you Francine?" he asked her.  
"No. He didn't call me anything, though, now that I really think about it, which I thought was interesting. What did he call me when you and the boys saw March of Crimes the other night?"  
"He called you Xtina, and said it was like your 'also known as' name."  
"'Cause it is."  
"So he called you—" Joey gestured to Francine. "—Hannah, and you just went with it?"  
"I didn't know what he was going to do to me," she confessed in a small voice, and dropped her gaze down to the floor. Joey's mouth dropped open right then. Hannah brought a hand to her mouth.  
"No—" Joey breathed; the overload of cake in his stomach proved to be a bit too much right then. He lay his hands over his stomach.  
"You _slept_ with him?" she demanded in a hushed voice. Joey turned his head to the side so he could gaze on at the coffee table in the middle of the room.  
"Actually, he slept with me," Francine corrected her.  
"You still slept with him, though," said Joey in an absent tone. "You were still in bed with him."  
Francine swallowed. The feeling that surrounded them weighed down upon their heads and shoulders. The only thing more perturbing on Joey's part was the fact Francine cheated on Frankie. At least Hannah admitted and showed him proof that there was nothing extreme between the two of them, but he knew Frankie would freak if and when he found out about this. It made his stomach turn more than the prospect of Hannah having cheated on him.  
"What I wanna know is he at least eighteen?" asked Hannah as she set her hand on Joey's stomach to help ease the feeling.  
"Yes," said Francine as she folded her arms and rested her elbows atop her knees. "I think."  
"You think?" she sputtered.  
"He never told me his age, but he did say he was out of school, though."  
"Fresh out of school so barely legal." Hannah closed her eyes and let out a low whistle. "Well, at least he's that age and not younger."  
"He's still a teenager, though," Joey pointed out, never raising the tone of his voice.  
"Could you tell me—tell us, rather—what you guys did," she asked in a near whisper.  
"After the first time you took him out to lunch, he ran into me and called me by your name. He started hitting on me and then the next thing I knew, he was kissing me."  
"Why didn't you stop him?" asked Joey.  
"I tried to, but he was too sweet to me, telling me that he was lonely and wanting something different from the pool there in the Northwest, like he was getting tired of it. And he told me he was leaving for Seattle again but he told me he'd be back soon. I swore there was nothing serious but he persisted."  
"Francine, why didn't you just tell him 'no'?" Hannah demanded.  
"Yeah, I mean, how could you do that to Frankie?" Joey's voice trembled again.  
"Because if I said 'no', he'd be heartbroken," Francine insisted. "At least that's what he told me. He got picked on a lot in school for his being tall and thin, and for the fact he's a punk rocker walking amongst a bunch of Zeppelin fans. Like he actually got his ass kicked for his tastes. He told me he needed a softening of the blow of sorts."  
Hannah turned her head towards the middle of the room. She followed Joey's gaze to the coffee table there in the midst of the floor.  
"So every business letter he sent to me was meant to be sent to you," she said in a soft tone.  
"Yeah, pretty much."  
"Every letter sent to me was meant to be sent to you thinking you're... me..." Hannah's voice trailed off.  
"What was even written in those letters, by the way?" Joey knitted his eyebrows together.  
"Just some commissioning type stuff," she replied. "I did get a new one recently, though. Like a couple of days ago."  
"Did you read it?" Francine asked her.  
"No, I didn't even open it because it didn't look like a business letter."  
"How so?"  
Hannah nibbled on her bottom lip. She gave Joey's flat belly a loving pat before she stood to her feet. She made her way into her next room to fetch that one letter. Joey swallowed and looked down at his slim waist.  
"God, that was a lot of cake," he muttered to himself.  
"I feel terrible now," Francine confessed to him as she lowered her gaze to the floor.  
"He came onto you and got under your skin," Joey pointed out. "You know, when I was in a bar earlier and they were playing there again, I got up front. And I looked right into his face."  
"He's got that sharp, hypnotic gaze doesn't he?" Francine recalled; she lifted her head to show him the tears brimming her eyes.  
"Yeah. It felt like looking at the hardened, whitened version of myself."  
"He got under your skin, too," she declared, her voice breaking.  
"Yeah, pretty much." Joey paused as he ruminated on that encounter there in the bar. That teenage punk rocker with a raw edge and bright eyes. Like looking at himself in a way.  
"Yeah, I can't hardly get him out of my mind," he confessed. Hannah then returned to the room with a red envelope in hand. She opened the back flap of the letter and took out a sheet of buttery yellow parchment paper. Joey caught a whiff of spicy cologne combined with an ashtray.  
"'You have to kiss me or I won't bother with commissions anymore,'" she read aloud. "'I need your help, your hope, your comfort, everything. I need your art and I need to give you the money with each of our shows, that's why we're playing there in upstate New York. I know I'm just above the proper age limit, and I know this might seem egregious but I need you, Hannah. I need you to kiss me and to fuck me.'"  
Joey and Francine took a shocked glimpse at one another.  
"That's what he wrote?" Francine inquired.  
"That's exactly what he wrote," Hannah replied in a soft voice as she tucked the letter back into the envelope.  
"What should we do?" he asked.  
"He also said he'll be at the gallery tomorrow," she continued as she ran her fingers through her dark hair.  
"Tomorrow?" Joey echoed, stunned.  
"Yeah. He very clearly wrote the thirteenth. So... so much for your birthday, Joey."  
"Well, you and I can still do something together," he pointed out. "Francine can set the record straight with him."  
"Well, see—that's the thing, Joey," she began again as she gazed into his brown eyes.  
"What's that?"  
"He told me—well, told Francine rather—to bring 'that pretty dark haired girl' along with her. Which means we'll have to hold off on celebrating your twenty-sixth year of life for a few hours."  
"Which means the both of you will have to confront his ass," he insisted.  
"Which means you have to stand off a little bit," Hannah scolded. "You can still watch us, like from the back room there. But this involves Francine and myself and thus, you've gotta hang out."  
"Joey can probably kick his ass for us, though, Hannah," Francine pointed out, sniffling.  
"Well, see, if Ben's been bullied and beat up so much, he'll know how to fight. Add to this, he's almost a foot taller than Joey."  
"Oh, come on, babe, I'm a hockey player," Joey scoffed.  
"Yeah, he can fight dirty," said Francine as she wiped away a tear from her eye.  
"But Ben is tough, though," Hannah insisted as she stepped closer to them. "I saw it when I took him out to lunch. He stood up for me when someone catcalled me. Like think back to the time that one guy catcalled me in the City and how the boys stood up for me, and now multiply it by ten and throw in some punches, too."  
"What?!" Francine almost choked on her own saliva at the sound of that.  
"Holy shit," Joey gasped.  
"Yeah. Shocked me, too. Like 'Jesus Christ, dude.' He gave me this excuse of 'I'm a punk rocker and I'm tough' or something like that."  
"So I have to stand down," he began as Hannah approached him.  
"Because I don't want you get hurt, baby," she told him in an airy voice; she rested her hands on either side of his face and gave him a kiss on the soft dark lips. "Especially on your day."  
Francine fetched up a sigh as Hannah kissed him again.  
"So what time did he say?" she asked, sniffling once more.  
"Eleven o'clock," Hannah replied as she put her arm around Joey's upper back and brought his head closer to her waist. "Or whenever he's done with rehearsal again."  
"You and I are going to confront him," Francine concluded.  
"And I'll lurk in the shadows," Joey said in a muffled voice. "Maybe I strip naked again to surprise him."  
"Oh, no, don't do that," Hannah insisted, "you'll only make him mad."


	8. the encounter, pt 1

_October 13, 1986_.

Joey had woken up next to Hannah there in her bed. She had nestled her head against his chest and put her arms around his slim waist: he could feel her thighs against his own, and her breasts up against his chest. Her flesh was soft and smooth to the touch; he let his tongue slither out of his mouth upon the feeling of her hip under his hand and his fingers.

He had wondered about any first encounters they might have had, had she not moved away to Rochester. Maybe they could have made love in the quiet place once the hormones raged in full swing. The very thought of the two of them having a moment together at the age of seventeen coaxed a round of butterflies inside of his stomach. She had told him she was pretty much heavy at that point.

All the soft flesh under his hands. All the full curves. All the pillowy softness to keep him warm.

Oh, baby.

He ran his hand down onto her belly and fixed on the memory of her having been heavier. He nibbled on his lip and struggled to keep it in his shorts. Maybe he could have asked her out to prom. The Injun and the fat girl being prom king and prom queen together. Himself dressed in a nice black suit with that little bowtie riding the base of his neck, and her in a nice dress hugging her full body.

He knitted his knees together to keep it in his shorts. But he couldn't resist it: he felt himself growing bigger and fuller there at the very thought and the very touch of her against his skin. He was about to send himself into orgasm right there.

But then again, if the two of them were together in high school, he wondered if he could focus on playing hockey and making music. Maybe they needed that bout of separation for him to follow what he really wanted. Maybe they needed that in order for her to discover what she wanted for herself.

Maybe this was what he needed here on the very day he welcomed his twenty sixth trip around the sun.

He ran his fingers along the full hourglass shape of her body, such that it made her stir.

She lifted her head to give a kiss on the side of his neck.

“Good morning,” she whispered into his ear, “birthday boy. I feel you tickling me.”

“Good morning— _oh honey pie_ ,” he sang that last part.

“You should do whispery vocals more,” she said to him. “You'd make hell of a crooner.”

“ _Gotta love her madly_ ,” he sang some more, still keeping his voice soft and whispery. “ _Gotta show you care—gotta love her madly—_ ”

She kissed him on the dark lips.

“You sexy, sexy man, you,” she whispered.

“You know I was just thinking about how you might've looked in high school,” he confessed.

“I was almost fat, Joey. Like I had rolls coming in on my belly and everything. I was getting huge.”

“I thought of you in a snug li'l dress—giving your belly and your tits a nice little accentuating of sorts. Y'know.”

She giggled at him.

“You're such a bad boy—but you're so cute when you are bad, though.”

He felt her hand slide around his hip onto his butt; she gave him a little squeeze.

“Hey, watch it,” he scolded her. “You don't want me to use my fingers on you, do you?”

“Maybe I do, big boy,” she whispered into his lips, the bottom of which he nibbled on again. He showed her a smirk and slid his fingers down the side of her panties. She kept her eyes fixated upon his as his fingers wriggled onto her crotch and in between her thighs. He showed her the tip of his tongue; she could feel him making his way into her lips.

“You are so attractive it's annoying,” she whispered into his lips again.

“Wow, a bad boy _and_ I'm attractive?” he teased her.

“Yes—” He never realized she had reached down his shorts for his length until she started fondling him. He closed his eyes and let out a soft groan.

“You want me to get primitive for you, baby?” she sweetly asked him.

“Pr-Primitive?” he stammered.

“Get you close to the top again?”

“You wanna choke me again?”

She burst out laughing right then, so loud that she rolled over onto her back and he let go of her lips. She lay there with her hand still down his shorts but her other hand on her forehead. She laughed so hard and loud that Francine stepped into the doorway right then with her hand on the door frame and a puzzled look upon her face.

“What the hell is going on in here?” she demanded, laughing with Hannah.

“You don't want to know,” Joey told her, lifting himself onto his elbows for a look at her.

“Maybe I do,” she insisted as she folded her arms across her chest.

“I want Hannah to choke me and open her gaping hole for me to move around inside,” he said with a straight face. “There.”

But that only made Hannah laugh even harder which made Francine laugh in turn. Joey lifted himself up into an upright position and a few of his lush black curls fell onto his bare chest. This was definitely something he wanted for his day, and he couldn't help but laugh himself.

“Alright, you two dorks,” Francine said as she shook her head. “Breakfast is almost ready and then we're going to skedaddle on over to the gallery for our little meeting with—that guy.”

“Oh, that guy,” Joey cracked; he reached underneath the covers to fix his shorts but the secret was already out among the three of them. Add to this, he had to resist the urge to make Ben blow him as well.

It was going to be quite the interesting for him, he knew that for sure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics to Honey Pie by the Beatles and Love Her Madly by the Doors


	9. the encounter, pt 2

“Okay, so what should I do in here?” he asked her.

“Just hang out here—Francine and I'll do what we can to keep him out of here.”

Hannah had guided Joey back into the Blue Room once they had returned to the gallery. She still had the dream catcher hanging there up on the wall, much to his amusement.

“You still haven't taken that thing back home with you,” he teased her.

“Well, no, not when I'm always dreaming of you, baby,” she assured him.

“Dreaming of my voice and my hair?” He showed her a little smirk.

“Always. Your voice, your hair, and your beautiful, _beautiful_ body.” She leaned in closer to him to smell the soft cologne on his neck. He watched her rest a hand on his chest to feel his heart beat. She brought her face close to his.

“I drew you,” she whispered into his lips. “I drew and painted you in all of your beauty.” She nudged a stray curl next to his neck to better show off his delicate brown skin.

“Mmm—my beautiful boy—” She looked as though she was about to lean in for a kiss on his lips but rather she gazed into his deep eyes.

“So where should I hide out at in here?” he asked her as he nibbled on his lip some more.

“Guys!” Francine called out before Hannah could respond to him. They both turned to the door where she poked her head into the room. “He's here!”

“Shit!” said Hannah in a hushed voice.

“Screw this—” Joey ducked under the table beneath the window. He felt something soft underneath his back, something soft and pillowy. He rolled his head for a look, and found he lay on a pile of horse blankets on the floor. He reached under his right hip to pull the blankets over his legs and his waist. Hannah meanwhile slid the stool he had modeled upon before the table to keep him further out of sight.

She hurried out of the Blue Room to assist Francine. Joey lay there on his back, gazing up at the underbelly of the table right above his face. He sighed through his nose when he caught the sound of Ben's voice.

He put his feet on the bottom side of the table. It was a bit difficult given the table was right above him, but after bending his slender knees closer to his face, he managed to lay there on his back on the blankets in something like the fetal position. He thought back to when he was a little kid and he would do just that: put his legs up on the head board of his bed. His mom always said it was because he felt tired, and sure enough, he always wound up falling asleep with his slender ankles resting atop the head board.

But here he wasn't the least bit tired but rather he wanted to hear what Ben had to say.

He recognized Hannah's jovial tone of voice, followed by Francine's sweet one, whereas Ben almost mumbled when he spoke. He could hardly catch a word he was saying.

“Well, no,” Hannah said to him. “Not like that, no.” Then Ben said something.

“I'm not sure about that, to be frank,” Francine pointed out. “We can always go out for a bite to eat, but nothing of that tier, though.” Then Ben said something.

“I'm just not really looking for much of anything,” Francine insisted. “Is that so hard to understand?”

Silence. Then Ben said something: Joey picked up the breaks in his voice. Even while in the dark, Joey still rolled his eyes at the sound of it.

“Ugh—” he groaned aloud. Silence again. Joey pursed his dark lips and held his breath.

“What was that?” It was a miracle he even heard Ben say that.

“What was what?” asked Hannah. Then Ben said something. Joey parted his lips enough to let out his breath in quiet fashion, and yet the light from the room outside shone over the rungs of the stool which in turn cast streaked shadows upon his face. He closed his eyes enough to make himself blend in with the space underneath the table. He held perfectly still as he heard footsteps shuffling on the floor in front of him. He couldn't see what was happening there but it didn't matter to him.

“Ben, there's nothing in here,” Francine declared from the other side of the room. “I'm telling you that right now.”

“I heard something in here, though, Hannah,” he insisted. Joey shot his eyes open at the sound of him saying her name. Through the darkness, he could see Ben standing there in the middle of the floor, in all of his gangly lankiness wrapped in a plain wardrobe. Joey knew he was tall: he couldn't even see his dense mop of nappy dark hair.

“Ben, there's nothing in here,” Francine repeated. “Besides, you're not even supposed to be in here.”

“Oh yeah?” he demanded, his voice breaking.

Joey watched him amble over to Francine there at the door to say something to her. He couldn't hear a thing but it made his heart hammer inside of his chest.

“Yes! Look, if you don't believe me—I'll come back to Seattle with you for a few days and see how you're doing there.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Okay, fine,” he said, sniffling. “I'm not too keen about the scene here in upstate New York. There's not enough weird acts here. Too much butt rock.”

Joey had to stop himself from laughing at that: he clasped a hand over his mouth. He watched Ben stride out of the room with Francine; before he walked out the door, Joey noticed the stream of a tear stain on the side of his face. Once Ben was out of earshot, he lowered his hand from his mouth. He directed his gaze to the spot of the floor where Hannah was still standing.

Once he heard the sound of the front door closing, Hannah crouched down before the table, right next to the legs of the stool. Joey lifted his head to look at her upside down.

“That was close,” she admitted.

“Yeah, I'll say—” He let out a little bout of laughter.

“What's so funny?”

“He said 'butt rock',” he laughed.

“Yeah, that made me laugh, too. But—don't get too excited, though. Francine and I are going to have to go to Seattle soon. And he sealed the deal with a kiss.”

Joey gaped at her while still looking at her upside down.

“He kissed Francine?”

“Yeah. While they were standing there in the doorway, he gave her an open lipped kiss. Much like how you give me an open lipped kiss.”

“Oh my fucking God,” Joey groaned: he couldn't help but think about Frankie.

“I know. Francine tried to tell him off but—I dunno if you saw him or not, he was crying. He actually started crying, Joey. She had to say 'yes' to him.”

“God—I feel so bad for Frankie right now,” he confessed.

“I know. I can only imagine how it's going to go if and when she tells him…” Her voice trailed off. She bowed her head to look at him laying there on the horse blankets with one pulled part of the way over his legs.

“I have to admit,” she started, “you look really cute right now laying there underneath the table. Like you want it a bit.”

“When do I never cute?” he teased her.

“You're never not cute, Joe.”

“So you ladies have to go to fucking Seattle now,” he said.

“Yes, but—we managed to strike a deal to bring a couple of friends with us, though. He told Francine he doesn't want us to go alone.”

“Which means—”

“Yeah. You and Frankie are coming with us to the Emerald City. But you have to pose as our friends, though, which means no funny stuff.”


	10. a moment alone

Joey rolled over onto his back and relaxed every inch of his body. He had nothing more than a bed sheet and a fleece blanket covering his legs and his waist. Even though it was rather crisp and chilly there in the room, he lay there without the covers on his chest.

He gazed up at the ceiling with his hands folded atop the top side of his stomach. It all seemed so confusing and yet so straight forward at the same time: Francine was having an affair with a boy who believed her to be Hannah. And this boy was coming up in the close woven world of tiny music, and by some stroke of magic, he wound up there in upstate New York.

He fanned out his fingers over his skin to feel his own softness. No way Hannah herself wanted to leave this flesh for something even harder and more sparse. He thought back to when he and the boys were in the hotel back over in Ithaca and he touched himself while trying to keep his noise level down.

He peered down at his deep chest and his smooth stomach. Hannah had left the apartment for a little while to visit her parents while Francine was still down at the gallery; he returned there to take a shower and then a quick nap before they went out to dinner that evening.

Hannah's words were etched into the side of his memory like an epitaph: “I drew you and your beautiful body.”

He caressed himself down, all the way under the edge of the blankets to the button of his jeans. Using both hands, he unfastened the button and let his skin be exposed to the chill in the room. He pictured Hannah kissing him there, right under his belly button, and let his fingers slide down his skin. Every caress on his skin was soft and tender, like Hannah herself.

He could feel himself rising up right in between his thighs.

He thought of that prom image once again: Hannah and her full, voluptuous figure in a beautiful dress. He nibbled on his bottom lip when he thought of her chest and his fingers made their way onto his shaft.

That was the spot right there.

He gritted his teeth when he imagined her nipples right there over his face. Every poke and every stroke. A whole lot of woman.

 _I'm gonna cream my pants again_ , he thought to himself as he used the pad of his thumb for a harder stroking of sorts. He groaned in his throat. She wasn't there to touch him.

It reminded him of all those night following their separation and he needed her to touch him. Rather, he needed that touch. That feminine principle. He tilted his head back into the pillow as the thoughts in his mind fed into his own touches to the point of creating a whirl inside of his mind.

To have that softness next to him. Those full lush curves. So like a desert rose.

He groaned again as he kept up the stroking. He let his lips hang agape as he rose higher and higher.

He had completely forgotten about Ben as he couldn't take it anymore. Using his other hand, he slid his jeans down his hips. He kept his main hand there on his shaft. He could feel his flesh growing fuller. He snapped his eyes shut to relish the feeling of euphoria running through him.

He let his tongue slither out from the side of his mouth like the dirty dog he was for her. A dirty dog touching himself. A dirty dog who wanted that dirty feeling rubbed all over him.

He gritted his teeth again once he felt himself to be closing in to the top of the hill.

And then he felt that warm liquid on the side of his finger.

Joey gasped and shot his eyes open. He peered down at his waist again to find he came on the back of his hand.

But he wasn't done yet. No way.

Careful not to make a mess on the sheets and the blanket, he slithered out of bed and made his way to the bathroom with his dick still in his hand.

He mopped it up with a bit of tissue and, once he had cleaned off the back of his hand, he kept at it.

 _Yeah, she wants some of this big fucking cock right here_ , he thought to himself. _Whole lotta woman with a hard edge to teach my ass a lesson_ —

He couldn't hardly finish that thought because he was about to get off again. And he did: this time right there on the bathroom floor.

“At least it's there,” he said aloud. The front door opened right then; panicking, he lunged to the side to shut the door to give himself some privacy, but Hannah had already caught a glimpse of him from the front room.

“Don't be doing that with my mom and dad running around,” she taunted him in a singsong voice. Feeling his face grow warm, he cleaned himself off again with another tissue and then took another one to mop up his mess on the floor.

The last thing he wanted, aside from Ben wedging himself in between her and him, was for her parents to reject him. He grimaced at the very thought of her parents disapproving him, and even more so at the thought of his parents disapproving her. He hoped the two of them could have a moment alone together in Seattle as he tugged up his jeans and zipped up.


	11. francine's diary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _“You don't know who you're talking to anyway,  
>  I can see through your lies.  
> Take the hate that you try to make every day  
> see what you get for your crime.”_  
> -“Deceiver”, Bible Black

“Alright, birthday boy—we're taking you out to dinner.”

Joey had gotten dressed in his nicest black jeans granted he had almost ejaculated over himself, which he combined with a black button up shirt: he left the top two buttons undone to show off his chest for Hannah. He adjusted the cuffs of the sleeves before putting on his black overcoat.

Hannah herself meanwhile had put on a little pearly white dress with a low plunging neckline and a triad of orange roses on her hip; she slipped her coat on over her bare arms and shoulders. She showed him a sweet smile once he surfaced from the back room with his long black curls streaming behind his head like a dark curtain and that soft clean musk about his neck and his wrists. He eyed the full shape of her hips accentuated by her dress and nibbled on his bottom lip.

“Francine'll be meeting us over at that cute little place down by the Canal,” she told him as she slung the strap of her purse over her shoulder. Joey put his arm around her and rested his hand on her hip. The feel of her under his hand sent goose pimples up his arm. He brought her close to his body, much to her bold amusement. His fingers caressed over the soft flesh over her hip and she chuckled at the feeling.

“Oh—Oh, hi, baby,” she said to him in a hushed voice as she rested a hand on his chest.

“Let's get moving, honey pie,” he commanded as he bowed his head towards her own. He lowered his gaze to her chest and showed her the tip of his tongue. She reached for the doorknob with her free hand and flung open the door for the both of them.

Joey never let her go as they headed down the corridor to the elevator. She even put her other arm around his waist as they awaited for the doors to open. She peered up into his face with her lips parted and her eyelids hooded.

“Happy birthday, my sweet friend,” she whispered into his face, and he nibbled on his bottom lip again. The elevator doors slid open and Joey lifted his gaze to the car behind her. He recognized that lush mane of black hair over a dark red suede sport coat and a black button up shirt. Hannah turned her head to see him for herself.

“Frankie!” Joey declared.

“Hey, dude,” Frankie greeted them, never changing his expression as Hannah guided Joey into the car next to him.

“What're—you look good?” Joey sputtered; she ducked close to him as though the elevator was about to fall down the shaft.

“So do you.”

“Yeah, but you look—classy, though. Like you're about to go ballroom dancing or something.”

“Oh, c'mon. We have to be pimps. You and I both. Let's be pimps.”

Joey chuckled. “Seriously?”

“Seriously!” Frankie insisted.

“We are both Italian, after all.”

“True—” Joey hesitated, unsure of what else to say to him right then.

“I think what Joey's tryin' to say is he's not sure why you're here, Frankie,” Hannah filled in for him; she had her body pressed up against Joey's slim body.

“I came up here to pick you guys up and say that Francine's already at the place and she's gettin' a little antsy.”

“Well, if she's got ants in her pants, she can ease them off with a bit of sugar,” she teased him.

“Yeah, but she was drinking coffee when I left so…” Frankie's voice trailed off as the doors slid open and they were met with the last blast of warm air there in the front lobby. He held the door for Joey and Hannah before they left for the chilly upstate New York evening. Joey bowed his head against the brisk wind and kept his arm around Hannah as he led her to Frankie's car there at the curb.

“It's unlocked, you guys,” he called out to them as he closed the front door behind him.

Joey let Hannah take the front seat while he ducked into the back. Once he shut the door behind him, he ran a hand over the crown of black curls atop his head.

“You might get some lake effect snow for your birthday,” she said with an eager tone.

“The only thing to make it better than that is an eclipse,” he suggested.

“An eclipse?” she laughed at that. The driver's side door flung open and Frankie slid into the seat.

“I picked the wrong day to wear suede,” he grimly declared.

“If it rains, Hannah and I'll cover you up in newspapers if we haveta,” Joey assured him as he stretched his left arm over the top of the back seat.

“Yeah, and get ink all over his nice suede,” Hannah teased him. “I don't think so, Jose.”

“Jose—that's Giuseppe to you, little miss,” he scoffed, which in turn made Frankie laugh.

They rolled away and headed on down to the block just prior to the cold gray Erie Canal, to the warm, intimately lit restaurant where Francine awaited them at a table with a little white mug of coffee and what looked like a Bible on the heavy dark wooden table next to her. Frankie greeted her with a hug and a kiss on either side of her face. Joey's stomach turned as he recalled what went down there in the gallery and the night club. She threw her arms around him and whispered, “Happy birthday, Joey” into his ear.

“Thank you so much,” he whispered back to her, but there was no denial of the truth right then, and the little black leather bound book on the table only made him more curious.

“I was thinking,” she began once she let go of him and smoothed out her dress, “that since this is also a winery, we'd get a bottle of red wine.” She returned her gaze to Joey and showed him a sweet little smile. “Seeing as it's a special night.”

“Red wine and some lush cake while we're at it?” Hannah followed along as she peeled off her coat and draped it over the back of her chair.

“Giving Joey his fill of cake, I see,” said Francine with a mischievous smile upon her face. “I need a little help picking out the wine, though.”

“I'll come with ya,” Hannah volunteered; she turned her attention to their boys with a twinkle in her big brown eyes. “We'll be right back, boys.”

They padded away from the table to the doorway on the other side of the room; Joey watched them disappear into the next room, and then he took his seat there at the side of the table pointed at the front door. Frankie took the one across from him so he would be sitting next to Francine. He peered over at the book, which had a faint sheen on the top side under the soft warm candle light, and raised an eyebrow at the sight of it.

“I assume that's her journal or something?” Joey asked him.

“It's her diary,” Frankie replied as he folded his arms over the top of the table. “Never took a peek into it, though—I respect her privacy. But I'm not sure why she brought it with her, either.”

Joey nibbled on his bottom lip again, but this time it was from the thought of Francine having cheated on Frankie with Ben. He swallowed when that whirring sensation of butterflies arose in the pit of his stomach. It wasn't from hunger, even though he hadn't eaten anything in the past few hours. Frankie frowned at him as he leaned back in his chair.

“You okay, Joe? You look kinda—I wanna say distracted.”

“Frankie—I feel so bad telling you this, but—” Joey closed his eyes and sighed through his nose. “Francine is having an affair.”

He opened his eyes to find Frankie never had changed his stoic, slightly stern expression, nor had he moved his arms from the top of the table there.

“My—Francine is having an affair,” he echoed.

“Yeah. With a little runt of a guy from Seattle.”

Frankie raised his eyebrows but still never really changed his facial expression.

“You've seen him?” he asked Joey in a low voice.

“Yeah. He's the front man of that band called March of Crimes—”

“That guy?” Frankie bowed his head forward and gaped at him.

“That guy.”

“I thought—he claimed Hannah as his girlfriend.”

“He thinks Francine is Hannah, but he's cheating with Francine.”

“Well—why didn't she just tell him off?” asked Frankie as he breathed a little harder.

Joey shrugged. “Emotions, I guess? He's an eighteen year old little guy with mental scars. I guess he found a notch in his armor.” He fetched up a sigh as he rested his right arm atop the back of the chair next to him. He looked on at the empty gaze on Frankie's face.

“Jesus, this is weird but this reminds me of when I was hanging out with Duck and Driscoll,” Joey muttered.

“Bible Black, right?” Frankie recalled.

“Yeah, right before I met you guys, too. Within three months, I could actually say Black Sabbath and Rainbow in the same sentence as Megaforce and a pair of ice skates. Yeah, that's the magnitude of things we're talking here. A prominent girl like Francine being with some raucous nobody shlub.”

“Frankie being Sabbath and Rainbow, and that idiot being the ice skates?” Frankie followed along.

“Yeah. And even I feel that's kind of lowbrow for ice skates.”

Frankie swallowed and stood to his feet. Joey watched him slip off into the front corridor off to the right; he disappeared behind the corner. Joey was left alone there in the main room of the restaurant, but only for a moment as the black haired waitress sidled up to him to pour him a cup of coffee and set down a glass of ice water before Frankie's place mat. He thanked her with a little smile and picked it up for a sip. He wondered what was written in that journal there, like for instance her private thoughts concerning herself with Ben. But then again, it was her sense of privacy. Frankie had the right idea when he said he couldn't break into her private life like that, much less Joey himself. The waitress returned with three more glasses of ice water for him, Francine, and Hannah.

He took another sip of the beany coffee as Frankie returned to the room, with his hair still neat and his suede jacket still in pristine condition. He took a seat there across from the table from Joey and took a sip of water.

“I'm surprised you're taking this so well, Frank,” Joey pointed out.

“I didn't,” he assured him.

“How so?”

“I have to clean off their door.”

Joey gaped at him.

“Oh, my God, really?”

“Yeah.” Frankie sniffled and took another drink of water.

“I should tell you that Francine and Hannah were asked to go to Seattle for him, and they want to take us with them to pose as friends. I thought you should know so you're—you know, not in the dark about it.”

“Yeah, yeah. I don't know if I have the stomach for that, though.”

“I'll get you some ginger ale, if you'd like,” Joey suggested.

“Yeah, I'm definitely gonna need ginger ale for this trip,” Frankie groaned as Francine and Hannah resurfaced with a bottle of wine and a pair of small square chocolate cakes.

“I didn't say anything, though,” Joey told him in a hushed voice.

“Yeah, don't wanna—ruin the mood—”

“Alright, boys, who's up for some shenanigans?” Francine said with glee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> couple of shoutouts to the movie Night Shift (from what I've seen anyways, is Joey's favorite movie) here xoxo


	12. seattle's finest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _“Told me to clip things, never the whole page.  
>  It's always been one of those days.”_  
> -“Down Undershoe”, Hater  
> (fun fact! that was my Twitter name forever it seemed. Chris himself even liked it)

_October 16, 1986_.

“So Joey and I have to be back in New York by Saturday,” Frankie told Francine as he held the door for her and Hannah.

“I think we can do it,” she assured him with a wink and a small grin on her face. “You guys have that album—we can totally do it.”

They had arrived in Seattle earlier that evening: on the flight over from Syracuse, Hannah suggested to Joey to not make it seem as though they have a romantic spark between them. It was hard enough having to swallow the pill of Ben having wedged his way in between Francine and Frankie while thinking she was Hannah, but this would be even harder. Thus, after having checked into their rooms, Francine guided them down to the parking garage to fetch the rental car. As far as Joey knew, he and Frankie had to start wearing the mask of “just friends” by the time they stepped off of the plane given Francine's notoriety as the manager of Xtina, or rather the notoriety of Xtina and her supposed relationship to this kid Ben.

In other words, he had to follow through on her stressing of not touching her. No funny stuff. No soft intimate touches. Nothing of that caliber.

Absolutely nothing.

Even as he agreed on it, the feeling in the plane cabin cooled down and brought him back to when they were separated. And although he agreed on it, Joey already itched for it the moment he strode out of the hotel onto the sidewalk. The crisp autumnal wind from the Puget Sound sent a chill over the crown of his head and down his spine. If anything aside from the damp feeling there in the Northwest, he knew the time change would send him into a frenzy for a couple of days or so, or at least until they returned home.

He ran his fingers through his black curls once he was in the fresh soft back seat of the car. Hannah took the seat next to him and, once she slid her painting tools on the floor right between her ankles, she lifted her gaze and gave him a small smile.

“Nervous?” she asked him as she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.

“Yeah,” he confessed with a sigh and a drop of his gaze to her thighs. “That and I wanna touch you so much right now.”

“Remember—we can't get close to each other.”

“We can't even hold hands?”

She shook her head at him with a grim expression plastered on her face, and he fetched up a sigh. Frankie climbed into the driver's seat and adjusted the plush red suede jacket. Joey was amazed that he never got a bit of puke on that lovely suede the other night.

He looked down at the black leather hugging his slim body and the taut denim accentuating his thighs. The whole thought of the affair gave him such a pinch, and not in a good way, especially with the way in which Frankie reacted to it the other night. But then again, as he eyed the denim hugging his hips and the flesh in between, he remembered why he was here. To lead this little punk boy on.

Granted, he hadn't even so much as met Hannah's parents, the two of them were best friends, having shared their quiet moments with each other from the very beginning and having stared into each other's deep dark eyes. Sure, they had a lot in common to the point of it being odd, but they stood worlds apart from one another.

He had whacked off so many times following all of those shows in his teen years. Thirty five songs a night. Six nights straight. All over the East Coast, from upstate New York all the way down to the Florida panhandle. A thousand years behind him, and a thousand years right before him. He was twenty six. He should feel old but the number never registered with him.

But then again, none of those late nights shared the same feeling as hanging out with Hannah and getting close to her. He was about to venture into those feelings again, but this time with her actually by his side even with the charade around them.

These dark streets before him. These dark quiet streets outside of the window. The one other difference was his wandering to the opposite coast. The opposite coast with a vast empty space of a freeway and network of cafes and restaurants lit up with nothing more than cheap neon and pale yellow street lights.

“Which way, babe?” asked Frankie at one point.

“Georgetown—this way.”

Joey nibbled on his bottom lip. It weighed down on his shoulders and on his chest. He was meandering into the shadow once again, the precursor to being in a band. Square one. But in a different place while serving as a phantom limb of sorts.

His head spun as they turned onto a street with a railroad off to the side. He wasn't used to the streets here, as they all wove and wandered throughout this little neighborhood right outside of downtown. He caught a glimpse of the Space Needle through the blackened buildings lining the street.

There was an odd northern Syracuse feeling to this part of the city, from the meandering railroad on the side of the street to the fact everything was so dimly lit and industrial looking. But he couldn't help but feel out of place here. An upstate boy in that dark corner of the Pacific Northwest the big wig reporters from New York City never dared give a second thought to. Something wistful about it.

And much to Joey's surprise, Hannah never made a sound as they left the hotel.

Frankie turned down a narrow side street, one lined with a few bars, a record store, a coffee house, a barber shop, and a glass shop.

“Here?” he asked Francine.

“This is the place. Ben told me over the phone that he should be meeting up at the restaurant over there—”

Joey leaned to the side to find her pointing out the windshield at a bright, but intimate looking bistro at the end of the street.

“He suggested that place 'cause there's karaoke there and there's an art store in the next building over,” she explained.

“Shall we walk around?” Frankie suggested as he killed the engine.

“I don't see why not,” Hannah spoke out of the blue which startled Joey a bit.

It was a chilly and surprisingly clear night there in the southern side of Seattle, as he envisioned this part of the Northwest as having overcast days most of the year sparing a few days in the summer. But Joey strode along the sidewalk with his hands in his jacket pockets and with Hannah right next to him. She had one hand on the strap of her purse and her other hand in her coat pocket.

A little more than an hour there in Seattle and Joey already anguished over the lack of her arm around him.

He strove to not let this ruin his experience here. This was quite the nice little neighborhood, as it did in fact remind him of upstate New York. Everything felt so cozy and buttoned down, and yet so off the wall, from the elaborate glass mosaic in the shape of an Aztec sun on one wall of an otherwise squalid dive bar to the fact there were three guys outside of the record store dressed as pirates, complete with the hats and even a fake parrot. Or not fake hook in lieu of a hand and wooden leg in lieu of an actual leg.

He caught the sound of a distorted guitar emanating from around the corner up ahead. Someone playing “When Doves Cry” and then “Foxy Lady” and then “Sweet Home Alabama.” Frankie stopped before a telephone pole prior to the corner and gestured to the side of it. Joey caught up with him to find a series of posters plastered all over the side of the pole.

Each and every one of them were to advertise for the local bands, all of them playing at places like the Crocodile or the Showbox or even down in the park by Pike Place Market. Most of them had names that took Joey back to those nights of being a sixteen year old and behaving as roadie for Megaforce, like Green River and Malfunkshun.

“All of Seattle's finest here,” Frankie joked, as he gestured to a poster near their feet which read it was about to be the last show ever for 10 Minute Warning. Right above that bore a poster declaring a show for a band called Medusa, which brought a smug grin out of Joey.

“My first singing band was Medusa,” he said as he lifted his gaze back up to Frankie.

“You oughta sing Medusa, Joe,” he suggested. “Our song 'Medusa'. Frankie said there's karaoke here.”

“You comin', boys?” Francine herself called out from the corner up ahead. She and Hannah gazed on at them as the golden light from the restaurant bathed over them.

“Yeah, we're comin' for you, alright,” Joey cracked. He hoped that would count as a pass for the evening as he and Frankie ambled to their pretend “just friends.”


	13. glass work and karaoke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"Go tell that long tongue liar,  
>  go and tell that midnight rider.  
> Tell the rambler, the gambler, the back biter,  
> tell 'em that God's gonna cut 'em down."_  
> -"God's Gonna Cut You Down", Johnny Cash

The four of them were greeted by the overhanging aroma of fresh pasta and bread: Frankie and Joey lingered behind their girls as they congregated there at the front door. The latter turned his head to the wall on the right, which beheld a series of even more posters, much like the ones on the telephone pole outside. They were all the colors of the rainbow and all gave Joey a flash back to all of the trips down the Carolinas and into the South. If he didn't know better, he could've sworn he had arrived somewhere way the hell upstate New York or in New England, especially when he watched a waitress walk on by with a pair of bowls full of clam chowder accompanied with oyster crackers.

“There he is,” Francine pointed out to the far side of the room. Joey directed his attention to where she was gesturing: before the squarish dim lit stage, and at a small round table with four empty chairs, was Ben with his fledgling head full of dark hair and wrapped in a heavy dark jacket. Even as they wove through the array of tables on the wooden floor, Joey could sense the butterflies fluttering up in his stomach. Maybe it was the way his bright eyes locked onto him as they came closer to the table, or maybe it was the fact he made Joey look heavy with his scrawny build.

Joey lingered behind Hannah as Francine leaned forward to embrace Ben. He watched him give her a kiss on the side of the neck. He glanced over at Frankie who bowed his head and dropped his gaze to the floor. Joey swallowed as Ben whispered, “glad you could make it, Hannah” into Francine's ear, and then turned to embrace Hannah.

When the two girls took their seats next to him, Hannah gestured to them.

“Ben, these are our friends Joey and Frank. They didn't want us to come to Seattle alone.”

He frowned at Joey and wagged a finger at him.

“Where have I seen you before?” he asked in a low voice.

“I—I don't really know,” said Joey with a shrug. He dared not tell him about that night in Ithaca, or the other night in Rochester.

“You look really familiar. Like I've seen a guy somewhere in upstate New York with similar hair and similar nose to yours.”

Joey shook his head as he reached for the chair to the left of him to give Frankie a seat, and then he took the spot next to him, right across from Hannah. He noticed a pad of white paper next to a flat tray on the side of the table. He nibbled on his bottom lip as Francine and Ben launched into a conversation about glass work and drawing.

He felt something tap on the top of his foot. He tilted his head back to look down under the table. Hannah brushed her feet against the tops of his.

Without lifting his head, he raised his gaze to her and showed her a mischievous little smile.

He knocked the sides of his Chuck Taylors against her flats. He looked over at Frankie who had taken a page of paper and began scribbling on it.

“Here, Joe—” He shuffled the paper towards him, and he found Frankie wrote down the words “Rock n' Roll High School” near the top.

It was a karaoke place after all; Frankie slid the tray towards him. Joey eyed the list of songs there in the tray and wondered which one he could sing the best.

“Oh, Sherrie” was nowhere to be found, but he knew if he sang it for the crowd, he would find himself a bit of trouble. Once he decided on a song, he wrote it down on the page and gave it to the waitress once she showed up to take their order.

Joey shifted his weight there in his chair as Ben stared on at him.

“So d'you see any good local bands around, Ben?” asked Francine in a sweet voice.

“Yeah, there's one I really like called Soundgarden,” he answered. “They remind me of Bauhaus but without the pretentiousness and more substance—” He turned his head to look on the other side of the room, which gave Frankie the opportunity to roll his eyes. Joey nodded his head at him with a disgusted look upon his face.

Sure, they might be good but that comparison was enough for Joey to stifle a laugh.

The waitress returned with glasses of ice water and cups of coffee for the two of them. Joey picked up his mug and took a sip. Nice, rich, and full of that bean flavor. He leaned back in his chair with the mug pressed to his chest. Every so often, Ben flashed a glimpse over at him and Frankie as Francine discussed glass work with him. Hannah meanwhile doodled on a paper napkin with the black ink pen Frankie used to write on the page of paper.

Joey could see the shape of his head and her head right next to each other but not the detail. He knitted his eyebrows at her which cued her to move the napkin to the edge of the table. She slipped it under the table for him and he took it to examine it. He held it under the edge of the table to keep it out of sight.

She had drawn her and him entwined and with their lips locked in a deep kiss. She drew the both of them in the buff, and gave the crown of Joey's head a triad of feathers. At the bottom of the napkin, she wrote “Xtina loves Chief”. He lifted his gaze again and winked at her. He heard Frankie snickering right next to him.

“And first up for tonight is Joey!” the maitre d' declared from the other side of the room. Joey stuffed the napkin into his jacket pocket and gave Frankie a high five before he made his way to the stage. His long black curls shone under the bright white light over the stage: the ones atop his head resembled a crown, or rather like a headdress.

He was Chief. He was the prince. He took the microphone and hesitated to await his cue; he gazed down at Hannah, who sat there right before the edge of the stage. Her big brown eyes gazed back at him like a pair of black holes. Frankie loomed behind her, and he looked as though he was about to puke right there.

He closed his eyes once the guitar kicked in.

“ _You need cooling_ ,” he crooned into the head of the microphone, “ _baby, I'm not fooling. I'm gonna send ya_ _b_ _ack to schooling_ —”

His high soaring voice filled the room. Almost too big for that room. He closed his eyes and held onto the microphone stand as if he performed with Anthrax. He kept thinking about Ben and Francine, and how he subverted them all so well. He subverted them like how a local music scene subverts what's already popular.

When he reached the bridge, he bowed his head and took a step forward.

“ _Way, way, down inside—woman—you need_ —”

Hannah burst into his mind.

He sang out that note, one that came from what he believed to be the soles of his feet, something he hadn't done since he auditioned for Anthrax. It helped he was wearing those tight pants and that leather jacket. But once he reached the note, he opened his eyes a small crack to find her gazing back at him. Through his blurred vision, he made out the shape of her gaping mouth and large eyes.

At one point, he held his hand to his stomach and bowed his head enough so a few locks of hair spread over his face.

Once he let out that final round of notes, he held the microphone out before him as the whole room gave him a standing ovation. He pushed the hair out of his face and gave the maitre d' the microphone and a high five. He strode off the stage to meet up with them again.

“Wow, dude,” said Ben with a raise of his sharp eyebrows.

“Oh, my God, Joey!” Hannah exclaimed and threw her arms around his slim body. He resisted the urge to give her a kiss on the lips given Ben was right there. Ben was right there and he had to hold back even in the hug.

This was going to be a long night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics to Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin!


	14. "it's a quirk"

Frankie took to the stage to sing “Rock n' Roll High School” for the room but Joey had set the standard from that point on. Hannah had her arm around Joey once they took their seat there across the table from Ben. She paid no attention to where she put her hand on Joey's body, that is until he felt her fingers run down his side. He gasped when he felt her touching his right hip bone.

Ben frowned at them.

“What's going on over there?” he demanded over Frankie's clean singing.

“Nothing!” Hannah swore even though she never let go of Joey's hip. He nibbled on his bottom lip as Ben pursed his lips, indignant. He returned his attention to Frankie for a moment before he turned back to look at them once more. Francine turned her head again, this time to look at them as well as Ben.

“Why do you guys keep sitting so close to each other?” he asked them.

“Because it's a quirk of ours,” Hannah explained.

He nibbled on his lip and gave Joey a dirty look; Joey himself had an odd feeling right then. Francine shifted her weight in her seat.

Once Frankie finished, the room erupted into applause once again. He came back to the table in time for Ben to take a sip of water and wipe his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Joey, Frank—will the two of you join me outside for a moment?” he suggested. Joey and Frankie glanced at one another.

“Uh, sure?” said Frankie. Hannah let go of Joey's hip so he could stand up. Ben stood to his feet and towered over the both of them. The butterflies returned to Joey's stomach.

“What happened?” Frankie mouthed to him, and he shrugged. But they had no other choice but to follow him outside.


	15. the confrontation

Ben led the two men out to the dark street, where the sole light source came from the golden lamps dotting the sidewalk. He stopped right at the curb and wheeled around to show the two men a look of disdain. He let out a low whistle as he reached into his inner coat pocket for a cigarette and a lighter. Frankie snorted at the sight of it once they stood away from the entrance of the restaurant.

“What?” he scoffed as it hung in the corner of his mouth.

“Can you not smoke?” Frankie demanded.

“Who died and made you president?” Ben taunted him.

“Cut to the chase, chief,” Joey commanded as he folded his arms over his chest.

“Chief?” Ben laughed at that.

“Yeah. You brought us out here to have a word with us. What'd you wanna talk to us about?”

“'Cause you and what's her li'l face in there were holding each other. I thought you guys were friends.”

“We _are_ friends,” Joey insisted as he gestured towards him. “She's my best friend, and I don't appreciate the way you're talking about her.”

“What? I called her 'little'. It's not like I called her fat, which she obviously is.” He bowed his head to light up his cigarette.

“Hey, don't talk about her like that!” Frankie exclaimed.

“I'm just sayin',” Ben pointed out in a defensive tone. “I'm just being honest. I'm always brutally honest about people. She's a little heavy.”

Joey clenched his fists as they hung down by his sides.

“Dude, you say that like it's a bad thing,” Frankie continued.

“Hey, one guy's pleasure is another guy's gross out montage.” Ben lowered his lighter to wag a finger at Frankie. “And don't you dare call me 'dude'.”

“Why not?”

“I just don't like it.”

“Oh, so you don't want people to say a certain word because you don't like it or because it's popular?” Frankie scoffed as he pressed his hands to his hips.

“I don't like it because it's wannabe bullshit,” Ben clarified as he brought his lighter back up to the end of the cigarette.

“That's the dumbest fuckin' thing I ever heard,” Joey declared.

“But it's truth, though,” Ben said, smug, “again—I'm just being honest.”

Joey and Frankie glanced at one another.

“I suppose honesty's a joke to you, too,” said Frankie as he gave his hair a toss.

“Why would it?” Ben demanded as he held the open flame within a hair's breadth of the cigarette.

“Because you say it like is.”

Ben chuckled at that as he lights up the cigarette and took a puff. Even though the breeze blew in the opposite direction, the very sight of the acrid smoke still made Joey and Frankie crinkle their noses at him in disgust.

“What is _with_ New Yorkers and being so shallow?”

“Shallow like an idiot who stands right before a storm drain!” Joey raised his fist and sucker punched Ben right in between the eyes. He staggered back and dropped his cigarette in the gutter: it rolled into the drain and disappeared down in the sewer. But that didn't stop Joey and Frankie from lunging at him as he stumbled onto the black top. Joey pulled up the hem of his shirt and his jacket over his head so he could sock him right in the stomach. Ben flailed his arms about and knocked Joey right in the nose. He staggered back and, once he fixed his shirt and his jacket, Frankie grabbed him by the collar and struck him across the face once, twice, four times.

“I swear on my grandmother's life, you touch Francine behind my back again, _you're dead_!”

“Like you'd care, fuck-o!” Ben shouted as he tore away from Frankie's grip. He stood there in the darkness with a bit of blood trickling down from his nose; Joey meanwhile held onto the end of his nose as it throbbed in pain from where he struck him.

“You okay, Joe?” Frankie asked him.

“I think so?” Joey lifted his hand; using the light from the street, he examined his hand. Not a speck of blood to be seen.

“Yeah, I'm not bleeding.” Frankie scowled at Ben.

“Good thing I didn't have my baseball bat with me 'cause I'd shove it up your ass,” he threatened him.

“Like you'd do such a thing with Hannah and Francine watching,” Ben jeered. “Yeah, I know.”

Joey and Frankie took another glimpse at one another.

“The fuck do you mean 'you know'?” Joey demanded.

“Francine and Hannah still think I confuse the two of them. But I figured it out pretty quickly—I just went along with it and never told them the true story behind closed doors.”

“So you lied about it?” Frankie sputtered.

“The hell I did. There's no way I'm letting those two crazies in. They only want in my pants.”

“So you think all girls their age are nothing more than human flesh lights?” Joey demanded as he patted his nose a bit more to ease the pain. “I oughta just give you a swirlie right now.”

“Jesus Christ, man, can you be any more of a tough guy?” Ben taunted him.

“Can you do a hand stand?” asked Joey.

“No. What's that got to do with anything?”

“Then don't come anywhere us or our girls again or I'll stab ya through the heart with a fuckin' hockey stick. You understand me?”

Ben laughed at him as the blood continued to trickle down from his nose.

“I'm a punk rocker, you scrawny little twerp. I could probably kick your ass all the way back to where you came from.”

“Yeah, well, I'm a hockey player. While you’re laughing up and measuring your own dick, I'll cut your throat and bury you alive under a bed of ice. And if that's not good enough for ya, Frankie here'll beat you to a pulp with his baseball bat. Now get the fuck out of here before your disgusting ass drips anymore blood on this precious city.”

Ben sneered at him again before he finally turned away and took out another cigarette to join him on his brisk walk down the pavement to the corner. The last thing the two of them saw was the cherry at the end glaring out to the darkness before he turned the corner.

“Wonder what he meant by 'only want in his pants',” Frankie muttered under his breath.

“I have no idea,” Joey confessed as he rubbed his nose some more. “God, he sure got me. Then again, I've been smacked in the face with a puck, so it's not the worst thing that could've happened to me.” He turned to Frankie. “How 'bout you? You alright? You got him pretty good.” He chuckled at that.

“Yeah, I did, didn't I?” Frankie laughed with him. And then he stopped. “I still wanna know what he meant by that, though.”

“Yeah—let's go consult our feminine principle, shall we?”


	16. "where do we go from here?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"Watch your back, so you won't stab mine.  
>  Get in bed with your own kind;  
> live your life, so you don't see mine,  
> drape your back, so you won't shine."_  
> -"Sweet Amber", Metallica
> 
> (one of my favorite Metallica songs ever and the one song I played on loop when I figured Ben out back in 2016)

Joey and Frankie stumbled back into the restaurant in time to find Hannah and Francine still congregated at the table. The latter lifted her head and gestured to the two men coming their way; the former turned around and gestured for them to come back over. She frowned when she realized it was just the two of them there.

“Where's Ben?” she asked them.

“We beat him up,” Joey bluntly replied.

“What!” Francine yelped over the burgeoning music behind them.

“Why?!” Hannah demanded.

“Because he's an asshole,” said Frankie as he clutched his hand. “A little bitch who looks at the both of you as nothing more than human flesh lights.”

Joey chuckled as he picked up his glass of water for a sip. “God, you should've seen it, babe, Frankie probably broke his nose.”

“You didn't have to get him like that, though!” she exclaimed.

“Hannah, we're guys,” Joey pointed out. “When we're tested, we fight. And Frankie and I being the athletes we are, we know competition when we see it. Oh, and by the way, he told us that he's figured out that the two of you own your own names so he's been lying to us this whole time.”

Hannah and Francine gaped at one another from across the table.

“He also said something like you only want in his pants,” Joey continued as he shook his head and prepared to take a sip from his water. “It was all really demeaning of him, too…” He tipped the glass into his dark lips when Hannah spoke again.

“That's because—babe, we have only wanted in his pants. Francine's kisses to him were all legitimate. Mine were, too.”

Joey spat out his water. He gaped at her, and Frankie did, too.

“You—fucking cheated on the both of us?!” Joey demanded in a hushed voice.

“But it was only because he kept nudging us,” Hannah insisted. “Neither of us had any choice, especially me. Really, if you're gonna be mad at someone, be mad at me for not telling him off in the first place.”

Joey stared off into space. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. It was not only a bout of confusion and swapping on their part but they actually went through with it with that guy. He shook his head.

“You know how being an artist gets lonely?” she continued in a soft voice.

“Don't—fucking—remind me,” Joey said in a terse voice. Hannah sighed and bowed her head.

“I think we should take another break, babe,” she concluded.

“At least 'til we get back to New York, Hannah,” Francine scoffed.

“Well, there's always just a short break, though,” said Hannah. “They have to be back there this time next week, so if we go our separate ways for the time being up here in the Emerald City, the two of us can do what we want and so can they.” She brushed a tear from her eye. “It's the least we can do. As for Ben, I'll tell him the commission's off. I'll tell him to go fuck himself if push comes to shove.”

Francine turned her head to Frankie, who had folded his arms over the top of the table and rested his chin atop his wrists.

“What do you think?” she asked him, and he shook his head. The two girls looked at each other; Hannah could see tears in Francine's luminous eyes. She reached into her purse to leave money and a tip for the waitress.

Without another word, the two of them stood to their feet and strode away from them. Joey, who had buried his face in his hands, rubbed his face and looked on at Frankie with a sick feeling in his stomach.

“Well, fuck. Where do we go from here?”

“I wanna find Ben and feed him to the wolves,” Frankie confessed.

“Yeah, I do, too. Make no mistake—if we see him, I'll rip him to shreds first, though. What he fucking did to Hannah was just low. What he fucking did Francine was low.”

“The bastard got in between us and treated our girls as nothing more than 'other women.' He should be ashamed of himself. Fucking gross scoundrel and pathetic excuse of a man.”

“Moreover, he has no remorse for what he did, either. He literally treated us as if we were nothing more than the scum on the bottom of his shoe. It's like he truly despises anyone who isn't associated with him or isn't from this area. And makes you wanna beat his ass to a pulp.”

Joey shook his head, and then took another big gulp of water, and then set down his glass.

“Wanna take a walk?” he suggested. “It is a nice evening. And I've never been here before, either.”

“Sure,” Frankie replied with a shrug of his shoulders.


	17. the girls got rhythm

_October 16, 1986_.

Joey and Frankie strode along the dim lit sidewalk with their hands tucked in their jacket pockets. The cool breeze from Puget Sound fluttered their long hair from behind their heads. This was bit of a nice little neighborhood, after all: funky and homey, and reminiscent of New York City and also Syracuse.

They walked past the record shop where they had spotted those guys dressed as pirates. They had disappeared from there, but in their wake stood a few small tables out underneath the front bay windows. Atop each of the tables stood wooden boxes without tops. The light from the inside of the shop shone down on the boxes and they could make out the shape of vinyl records leaning against each other.

Frank was eager to examine the records in the box closest to them. Joey hung there for a moment before he indulged himself in the one to Frankie's left.

Nothing caught Joey's eye first. And then Frankie piped up.

"Hey, Joey, check it out—"

He turned his head to find Frankie holding a copy of their album _Spreading the Disease_. In the soft light, Joey recognized the soles of those work boots there at the bottom of the cover. He couldn't resist the gleeful smile from spreading over his handsome face.

"This place has got it _down_ ," he declared.

" _Armed and Dangerous_ is here, too!" Frankie and Joey showed each other eager grins and gave each other high fives.

"Let's go inside—" Frankie suggested as he gestured to the left there.

Joey led the way into the record shop and they were met with the fresh smell of new records and paper liner notes. It was a small place and yet crammed full of music of all formats. He let his eyes wander over the rows of vinyls and CDs in the middle of the room. He looked over at Frankie and the elated expression on his face as he examined the right side of the room.

"I feel like we could spend a shitload of money in here," Joey remarked.

"I don't have a lot of money, though," Frankie confessed. "Let's come back here to spend the night if we have to."

Joey nodded and they backed away from there and onto the sidewalk again. He looked across the street at a planter on the other side of the pavement. He noticed a stray black cat leaping up onto the planter and disappearing into the bushes. He sighed through his nose as he thought of Hannah.

It was all so complicated and yet it all made sense. This boy got in between them because he saw the girls were lonely, without their boys. Being an artist was lonely, just how she had told him. If only he could make things seem a little closer than perhaps something like this wouldn't have happened, but at the same time, he knew in his heart he couldn't blame himself for it. He had signed on the dotted line the moment he picked up a pair of drumsticks and began singing to John Lennon.

"Joey? You comin'?"

He turned his head to find Frankie had strode ahead of him a bit, thus he hurried up to catch up with him.

They wandered past a tattoo parlor, a parlor bar, and a bookstore closed for the night before they reached another little restaurant, one that looked a little busy for the night.

And yet they still wedged their way in through the front doors there. The room smelled of freshly made French fries and Jagermeister. The sole light came from little golden lights dotting the ceiling to give the whole place a rather intimate feeling throughout. Add to this, the ambient guitars of "Purple Rain" caught their ears as well as a woman's lush contralto voice crooning out the lyrics.

"We still didn't get something to eat after all," Frankie pointed out.

"Yeah, I just had a glass of water and a smack in the nose," said Joey. They made their way to the heavy polished dark wooden bar and propped themselves up on the rickety black metal stools. Before taking their seats, Joey noticed two young women on the other side of the room with electric guitars under an electric blue light. The little black haired girl crooned out to the sensual rhythms of Prince: the redheaded girl next to her strummed her guitar and nodded her head along to it.

It all felt like a sign, especially given the little neon heart behind their heads to add a pink crown to their hair.

Joey opened his coat and crossed his right leg over his left while Frankie took off his coat and draped it over the back of the stool.

Something caught Joey's eye: he glanced over at the far side of the bar and recognized that tall lanky silhouette facing the other way as he spoke to his cronies. Joey leaned to the right to grab Frankie's attention.

"There he is," Joey pointed out.

"We can't beat on him, though," Frankie told him.

"Yeah, we can't risk ourselves like that, not with the girls having taken a break from us and all." Joey glanced around the crowded, bustling room. "We are in another karaoke bar, after all."

"I wish Scott, Charlie, and Danny were here," Frankie confessed.

"Fuck yeah, we'd show that little bastard who's boss." Joey turned his attention back to the two girls on the other side of the room: he craned his neck even more to find that underneath the neon heart stood a small drum kit.

"Wait, hang on, Frankie," he said as he set a hand on Frankie's shoulder. "It's open mic night."

"Again, I wish the three of them were here, though, Joe."

"But there are those two girls with guitars, though." Joey gestured back to them. "They've got a drum kit behind them."

"What're you sayin'?" Frankie knitted his eyebrows together.

"You know that little rap number you, Scott, and Charlie have been kicking around for a few weeks?"

"'I'm the Man'?"

"Yeah." Joey couldn't resist showing Frankie a mischievous grin to which Frankie shook his head at.

"No freakin' way!" he scoffed. "We're not doing that, Joey!"

"The other alternative is letting that little hamster cock-blockin' the both of us and gettin' away with it," Joey pointed out. Frankie nibbled on his bottom lip and stared past him at Ben there on the far side of the bar. An eighteen year old in a place that sold booze: he must've had a fake ID otherwise there was no way he could've gotten in there. Frankie swallowed and nodded his head.

"Alright. Let's do it. Let's get our asses up there and convince them into it."


	18. another karaoke night

"Okay, so why you guys wanna do this?" asked the brunette; they had caught up with the two girls after their cover song and suggested the idea to the both of them.

"For spite," Frankie replied as he peeled off his coat.

"Spite?"

"Spite and flexing our muscles to some little punk bitch who screwed us over."

The two girls glanced at one another with baffled looks upon their faces.

"It's either vent through our music or risk getting our asses in trouble," Joey pointed out.

The redhead fetched up a sigh.

"Okay, we'll do it," she concluded. "We'll have to learn the riff, though."

"It's real easy, I promise," Frankie assured her. She handed him her guitar and he rested the body on his lap. He proceeded to fan out his fingers on the fret board and then he strummed. That harsh, rough grating guitar sound crunched through the little amp behind him and Joey: it was harsh enough to make the two girls lunge back a bit from the bounce of it. But then they watched his hand slide up the strings as he played the intro of the song for them.

"Kinda heavy, kinda funky," the brunette remarked as he proceeded into the first part of the first verse.

"That's exactly what it is!" he declared. "Heavy metal combined with rap. It's basically following his grooves, too." Frankie nodded at Joey.

"Well, we are from here in Seattle," the redheaded pointed out. "There's some pretty weird fusions up here on the music scene."

"But you know how to do a riff like that, though, right?" he asked her.

"Oh, yeah! We've covered Rainbow and the Ramones before."

"Sweet!" Frankie handed the guitar back to her. "Joey here and I'll do the rap, so don't worry 'bout learning the words."

The girls led them onto the stage with their guitars still in hand. Frankie picked up the little bass guitar and plucked the strings a bit to ensure it was in tune. Joey ducked behind the drum kit and picked up the sticks from the top of the snare. He bowed his head away from the microphone head; he took his seat there on the low stool and experienced an onslaught of memories of playing in Megaforce.

"We've got two featured guests with us tonight, ladies and gentlemen," the brunette said through the microphone. "They're from New York so they're playing in front of a different breed of crowd. Everyone give a warm welcome to Joey Belladonna on drums and Frank Bello on bass and vocals!"

The room erupted in applause: Joey peered through the tom drum and the cymbals to see Ben on the far side of the room. Through the darkness, he could make out the sight of a wadded tissue shoved up his nose.

He nibbled on his bottom lip as the redhead proceeded to play the riff that Frankie showed her. He looked at the skin of the snare and pictured it to be Ben's face. His face was going to break again with every smack of the stick.

"NOW! WE'RE! ANTHRAX! AND WE TAKE NO SHIT!"

Every time Joey hit the snare with Frankie's enunciation, it resembled to the sound of a blacksmith hammer. Each impact felt like a smack to the face of garbage, a horrible sense of humor, a sick soul with no spine or iota of respect for women and the outside world.

"I'M ON YOUR CASE I'M IN YOUR FACE I KICK YOU AND YOUR FATHER BACK IN PLACE! STEP OFF SUCKER UNDERSTAND! DON'T YOU KNOW THAT-"

"I'M THE MAN! I'M THE MAN!" Joey shrieked into the microphone. "I'M SO BAD I SHOULD BE IN DETENTION! I'M THE MOTHERFUCKING MAN!"

His voice once again filled the whole room.

The brunette turned around at one point to show him a big grin and he returned the favor to her.

At one point, they had the whole room clapping along with Joey's rhythms. He glanced over at Ben and his folding his arms over his chest, as if unimpressed. Of course he was unimpressed! They were two outsiders having pounded on him there on his precious territory. They stood up for their girls but they wound up paying the price and now wondered here to the other side of the neighborhood with their residual adrenaline.

Joey hammered away on the drums as if he crafted a blade. Frankie's yelps into the microphone were ferocious and yet clean enough. If only Charlie was there!

At the end, Joey shouted that "OH! OHHHH!" into the microphone over his head. He glanced over at Ben again to find him drinking something out of a shoe. He grimaced at the sign of that even as he swiveled the head of the stool towards the right side of the kit. He stood up and waved at everyone in the audience. Frankie gave the two girls a high five, and then he approached Joey for a hearty embrace.

Joey reached behind him to give high fives to the girls himself before they left the stage.

"I hate to do this but the brunette's cute," Joey confessed in a low voice.

"She looks like Hannah," Frankie replied as he stood back for him.

"Thinner. But yeah, she reminded me of Hannah. Also, idiot's giving us both the stink eye right now."

"Should we talk to him?" asked Frankie as he nibbled on his lip.

"Yeah, might as well. We are within proximity of a bar after all. The worst thing that can happen to us at this point is getting thrown out of here onto the street."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lyrics to I'm the Man!


	19. "sick of your bible black"

Ben sneered at Joey and Frankie as they wandered towards him. His cronies backed away from there to give them some room. Or perhaps it was because the bassist took out another edible from his jacket pocket to give to the others. He still had his back pressed to the edge of the bar and his elbows hoisted up there to keep his chest open.

"What do you two prissy little bumpkins want?" he snarled in a nasally voice once they came within earshot. Joey spotted a beer bottle right behind his back.

"Just wanted to see if you're up to par," Frankie said in a singsong voice. "That's the part of being prissy, you know."

"For tough guys, you sure know how to make a lot of noise."

"Well, yeah," said Frankie. "I picked up a bass for a reason and Joey here's paid his dues in upstate New York."

"Upstate New York," Ben chuckled with a clearing of his throat and a shake of his head. "That place is more barren than two guys with their prostates hanging out from behind their belts."

Joey and Frankie glanced at one another with disgusted looks on their faces. And then Joey started chuckling.

"That wasn't intended to be funny," Ben scoffed.

"I wasn't laughing with that, y'know," Joey retorted. Ben rolled his eyes and fetched up an exasperated sigh.

"Said you paid your dues?" he asked Joey with bit of an unimpressed sneer on his face.

"Yeah." Joey set his hands on his shapely hips to demonstrate his power. "I've been in four bands, not including Anthrax. At one point, I worked six nights a week doin' thirty five songs a night, all up and down the East Coast. I played drums and I sang."

"D'you write anything, though?"

"Somewhat. But I'm more the performer than anything, though."

"You sure? You'd seem like you'd make a good writer."

Joey raised one eyebrow at that. He wasn't sure if Ben was trying to be funny or not.

"What makes you think that?" asked Frankie, who folded his arms over his chest.

"You guys oughta write everything I've said to you and you oughta do it together. Co-write a book together. A couple of guys in leather." Ben snickered and shook his head. But then Joey realized what he had meant by that.

"You know, my last band before joining Anthrax was Bible Black," he told him with a bit of firmness to his voice.

"Bible Black?" Ben echoed.

"Yeah. As in 'I'm sick of your Bible black.'"

Ben dropped his gaze to Joey's slim belly and his snug jeans, and then he brought his attention back up to his deep chest and long luxurious black curls.

"You got a problem with me?" Joey demanded, raising his eyebrows at him.

"Yeah. You look like a douche."

"Pot, meet kettle," said Frankie, who gestured from Joey to Ben himself.

"Also, you think I look like the kind of thing that cleans out vaginas?" Joey laughed. "Is that what you're gettin' at?"

"I'd like to clean out your vagina," Ben snapped.

"What, you want a piece of me?" Joey couldn't help but laugh even more.

"I could snap you in half like a fucking twig. Skinny little bitch. I oughta cram a shitload of burgers down your throat."

"Oh, no, don't do that," Frankie warned, "you'll only make him hungry."

"Hungry for an ass-kicking?"

Joey burst out laughing at Ben's attempts to take him down a peg. Frankie joined in on the laughter. It was all they could do given they were surrounded by people there in the suburb of Seattle. But then Ben reached behind him, picked up the bottle, and smashed it against the edge of the bar. The glass splintered at the halfway mark, and he pointed the jagged end at the soft part of Joey's belly.

He lunged back before the pointed shards could even cut him and put his hands up. Frankie huddled next to him. Gasps and silence surrounded them.

"Whoa, hey!" Joey exclaimed. "Calm down, man! Calm down!"

"I oughta slice you open and let your blood spill here," Ben threatened him.

Joey looked over at Frankie, who looked to be holding his breath. Someone behind them whispered something, but that was the least of Joey's troubles at the moment. He swallowed and returned his gaze to the jagged ends of the bottle.

"But—why?" he asked in a small voice. "Why do you wanna kill me?"

"Because it's poseur-ass bitches like you that have kicked my ass my whole life. I got in trouble standing up for myself because I'm tired of pleasing people. I just wanna raise hell. And if I have to slice some skin open, I'm going to!" He lunged forward to Joey and Frankie but he never came any closer. The shards were about a foot away from them.

But then the bartender skidded behind him to wring the bottle out of his hand. Ben struggled to break loose from his grip but he knew it was futile. Joey could see the frustration and unbridled violent rage in his face as he was dragged back into the darkness. To think he got together with both Hannah and Francine: he felt sick at the thought. Nobody in the upstate New York music scene had that much anger against the world so of course it frightened him.

Once Ben had been thrown out of the bar, Joey set a hand on his waist, that real soft part of his otherwise toned belly. To think he was that close to being stabbed.

The bartender rounded the corner and approached the both of them.

"You guys alright?" he asked them.

"Yeah, we're just... shook," Joey replied.

"Might need a change of the pants," added Frankie; the bartender ducked back behind the bar to fetch a broom and a dust pan to pick up the broken glass. Soft chatter behind them resumed, but the feeling in there persisted over them. Frankie let out a relieved sigh and ran his fingers through his lush dark hair.

"You wanna see if there's a place we can spend the night at?" he asked Joey.

"Sure. Seeing as there's no way we can go back to the hotel. Not right now, anyways."


	20. dream catchers and leather

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"There's something in the sky,  
>  take a look in my eye.  
> No, I won't dare deny it."_  
> -"Taken By Force", Joey Belladonna
> 
>  _"'Cause something is happening,  
>  but you don't know what it is.  
> Do you, Mr. Jones?"_  
> -"Ballad of a Thin Man", Bob Dylan

The bartender who had thrown Ben out of there invited Joey and Frankie into the loft upstairs so they wouldn't have to seek out shelter in the nearby park or something of that nature. Joey had explained to him their situation and thus he gave them the two beds for the night being. He also offered them something to eat given they still hadn't dinner yet.

Thus, by the time they turned in that night in the cozy loft, it was almost midnight.

Joey took the small bed on the right: he lay underneath the window sill and a patch of the wall where he caught sight of something dark. He put his hands under his head and relaxed his arms and his chest. He could still hear Ben's angry voice and he could still see the rage in his face. The thought of him inching closer to Hannah and Francine made him feel sick.

Frankie peeled off his jacket and lay it over his body to serve as a blanket. He lay his head on the little pillow one of the waitresses provided to him from the couch downstairs. It wasn't laying there with Francine, for sure, but it was better than laying outside as the cold autumnal rains beckoned in from the northern side of the Puget Sound.

Once he had reached up and switched off the light, which in turn engulfed the roof in darkness, Joey rolled over onto his left side and stared on at the plain wall in front of his face. The comfort of the darkness allowed him to think of Hannah. Two best friends having been separated by circumstances beyond their control: it almost felt as though they weren't destined to be together. He couldn't stop thinking about her and Francine there in their hotel room.

He wondered what they were doing at the moment. Were they missing the both of them? Were they doing something to keep their minds off of the matter?

He caught the sound of the rain on the roof overhead. If only he lay under his quilt then maybe that lovely white noise would otherwise better comfort him.

 _Glad we're not outside_ , he thought to himself as he closed his eyes. He didn't have his dream catcher there with him, even as he drifted off to sleep.

Joey opened his eyes to find himself laying on a stretch of lush green grass. He looked down at his body which looked as though he had been run over by a backhoe. His slender legs bent in every which direction like lightning bolts: someone had broken his ankles and twisted his feet around as though they were made of rubber. And yet he felt no pain.

Someone kept chanting the words "March, hater, march!" in his ear in a voice that sounded as though the person stood under five feet of well water.

He rolled his head over for a look to his right.

A wedding. With lots of dead, rancid looking flowers and guests who look as though they came straight out of that horror movie Joey was asked to do in the next year or so. 

Wait, what?

They all wore tuxedos and dresses of all colors of the rainbow, like how the sky consisted of all colors of the rainbow.

There, near the altar, he spotted Hannah, wrapped in an ethereal white dress with a soft lace bow around her thick waist and elbow length lace gloves on her hands. Her dark hair had been scrubbed to perfection, and curled into those same tight kinks making up his hair, and then tousled over her shoulders. Joey swallowed as he watched Francine take stage behind her as her maid of honor in a little white dress and an accompanying lace bolero around her slender shoulders.

No groomsmen.

Well, there was Frankie and Scott but they were strung up behind the altar by something thick and stringy looking. Their own bowels.

Joey opened his lips to say something to Hannah but no sound came out. She bowed her head; even from a distance, he could make out the sight of her cherry red lips trembling with tears.

He wanted to say "don't cry, babe, please don't cry!" but he couldn't. Someone had stolen his voice.

Then he watched Ben stroke down the aisle towards Hannah, his bride, his wife-to-be.

Joey shook his head. Sure, Hannah was his best friend and her happiness was his happiness, but not like this. Please God, not this!

Ben took Hannah by the wrists and yanked her around to give her a deepthroated French kiss, which made Joey's stomach turn. His stomach turned even more as Ben's body swelled out and his hair fell right out of his head: in its place came a short respectable buzz cut of a salt and pepper scheme. He aged twenty years right there.

Joey watched Hannah's belly swell up and out at such a quick pace. She grew as big as the planet Earth to give Ben children by his command. A creepy old man using a twenty-odd-year-old woman for his own personal pleasure.

It was too much.

Joey sputtered and choked at the sight of the two of them kissing; he wanted to shriek at the top of his lungs but he couldn't.

No sound came out.

Someone took his voice.

Ben took his voice.

Joey gasped as he woke up. Breathing hard, he gazed up at the ceiling and the soft gray shadows washing over the cottage cheese. He looked down at his slender little body, at his thighs and his lower legs, both of which were still intact. He ran a hand underneath his shirt to feel the soft skin on his flat belly.

He could hear the rain on the roof overhead but no sound emerged from the bunk behind him. He rolled over to find Frankie laying there on his back under his jacket. He gazed right up at the ceiling with a glazed look in his eye.

"You alright, Frankie?" asked Joey.

"Yeah. I woke up like ten minutes ago and so I've been laying here waiting for you to wake up so we can grab some breakfast."

The dream still hung fresh inside of Joey's mind but he had an odd feeling within him. It was like an epiphany of sorts: maybe it was the sight of that wedding and the fact Hannah become a child-bearer for Ben, but something about it struck him as odd. A sign of sorts.

"Frankie," Joey began. He rolled his head over the pillow to look over at his friend and band mate.

"Yeah?"

"I've got an idea." Joey sat upright and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. He stooped down to put his shoes back on.

"We've had the wrong idea about Ben all along," he continued.

"What!" Frankie demanded; he scrambled into an upright position and gaped at Joey.

"He's not a bad guy." Even though he had just woken up, Joey was quick to lace up his Chucks. "Just fucking fucked the fuck up is all."

"Wait. What?"

"I'm gonna try and console with him," he confessed as he ran his fingers through his black curls. "I know he's not just the angry little fuck we've encountered."

"What do you mean?" asked Frankie as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed himself.

"I'll explain later. Just... come with me."

"Can we at least get something to eat?" Frankie tugged his jacket back on over his body.

"Well, of course. It's early in the morning and we're in Seattle. We'd be crazy not to."


	21. the injun and the punk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"So I say to you, so you look at me,  
>  what do I have to do?  
> And you look at me, so I say to you.  
> You just look at me; what the hell do you see?"_  
> -"H8 Red", Anthrax (probably my fav on Persistence of Time)

_October 17, 1986_.

The restaurant downstairs had opened early for the morning to begin making breakfast. As Joey and Frankie descended the stairs to meet up with the fresh aroma of eggs and pancakes cooking in the kitchen, they caught the sound of the rain falling on the roof even harder. Joey wondered if Hannah and Francine were taking care of themselves back at the hotel. The dream still seared throughout his memory. He was sure of it, or perhaps it was the mood of the dream talking to him.

He led Frankie onto the wooden floor down below; he spotted that short cut of hair already at the bar. He was wrapped in a heavy windbreaker and he held onto the base of a glass of something clear. It was so early and yet Joey knew he started the day with a drink and a half.

Ben scowled as they approached him.

"What do you want, boy," he greeted them in a dark voice. Joey cleared his throat and took his seat there at the bar next to him.

"Okay, first of all, don't you fucking dare call me that," he said in a firm voice. "I'm older than you and I'm also Indian so don't push it."

Ben nibbled on his bottom lip as he eyed Joey's curls. Frankie took the seat to Joey's right.

The waitress walked up to them: both men asked her for cups of coffee. Once she had stepped away, Joey returned his attention to Ben.

"You're Indian, really?"

"Iroquois. On my mom's side. I don't really want to be called 'boy', especially seeing as you're a white boy."

Ben pursed his lips and then took another swig from his glass. Joey caught a whiff of alcohol.

"How old are you?" he asked Ben.

"I'm obviously a dumb kid."

Joey shifted his weight there on the stool. "Maybe you're not," he began in a deliberate tone of voice.

"Huh—?" Ben flashed him a disgusted look.

"Maybe you're not a dumb kid. Hey, look at it like this, I've often felt dumb myself. You know..." He gestured at himself. "...the whole thing about how we're dumb because we don't look like you."

Ben sighed through his nose and took another drink.

"I'm barely eighteen," he said in a hushed voice.

"Eighteen year old guy smokin' and drinkin' like that and not really eatin'," Frankie observed, "that can't be good."

"I don't care," Ben muttered. Joey knitted his eyebrows together.

"Why not?"

Ben sat there in silence with one hand resting on the base of his glass and his gaze pointed at the top rim of it.

"Why don't you care?"

"Because I don't know any other way."

"Way to... cope?" Joey asked in a low voice. Ben ran his tongue along his bottom lip.

"Even I can tell you that's not good, dude," Joey pointed out.

"Again, I don't give a fuck. There are too many people like you two coming here and polluting the city."

Joey and Frankie glanced at one another and the waitress returned to them with little white china mugs of black coffee. Frankie thanked her and he picked up a packet of sugar from the little rack in front of them. Joey picked up his mug for a sip: the coffee was rich and filled with that voluptuous beany flavor.

"Why do you not like outsiders?" Joey asked him as he held the mug before his mouth.

"For the same reason Indians don't like white people coming in and taking their shit," replied Ben in a single breath.

"But you're not Indian, though."

"It's still the same feeling, though."

"No, it's not," Joey argued.

"Yeah, even I can tell you that," Frankie chimed in.

"You guys are poseurs, I can feel it," Ben snapped.

"How are we poseurs?" Joey demanded.

"Especially you." Ben glared at Joey.

"That makes no sense."

"You've got long hair and you dress like a prissy little fuck. The same kind of dickheads who have beaten the shit out of me for years."

Joey glanced back at Frankie, who looked as though he had eaten something sour.

"I've gotten my ass kicked so much in school, starting from when I was in elementary," Ben pressed on. "I've decided I'm gonna let school ruin my education."

"Don't blame the school," Frankie told him, "bullshit happens everywhere no matter how old you are or where you are."

"I know," Ben was scorn.

"Then why are you so bitter?" asked Joey.

"Look, can you guys get the hell away from me and leave me alone for like five minutes please? Especially since I think you—" Ben gestured at Frankie. "—just about broke my nose."

"It's because you got in between us and our girls," said Joey in a curt tone of voice. "We were trying to be good boyfriends and yet they still wanted some time alone here before we go back to New York."

Ben hesitated and frowned at him. "Really?"

"Yeah. We slept upstairs here last night. They're back at the hotel right now."

"Huh." He turned his head back to the glass on the counter in front of him. He took another sip and Joey took another swig of coffee shortly afterwards.

"Make no mistake, though," Ben said with bit of a snide feel, "I'm moving to the Islands to get the fuck away from the uptick in civilization. If I could live off the grid, I would. If any kids come to my doorstep, I'll blow their fucking heads off. I'll make my own litter of kids and keep them the fuck away from all the other ones."

Joey couldn't take it anymore. He rotated his body towards him, and rested his left elbow on the top of the chair and his right on the edge of the counter.

"Ben, I know there's a soft side to you," he confessed to him. "It's in there somewhere. And no matter how hard you want to be towards us, it's not going to stop me from wanting to dig underneath that hard exterior. It's not going to stop me from seeing you as a poor bastard of a kid polluting himself because he can't roll with the punches."

Ben hung there next to him in total silence. Frankie took another drink of coffee and then Joey topped off the rest of his mug.

"I mean, the fact you—actually got with Hannah and Francine tells me you have a heart inside of you. I'm not going to let this—this—" He gestured over Ben's head. "—edgy horse shit scare me off. So—like, you know, you can act like the scary guy and try ta intimidate me and Frankie here, or you can put on your big boy britches and be nice for once. Jesus Christ. Let me tell you two things I learned when I was learning how to drum and looking for bands to play in. The first thing is you've gotta be nice to people if you wanna get by. You don't know what's goin' on on the other side. So when you get all judge-y and shit, don't be surprised if the other person wants to beat your ass. And the second thing is if you're just startin' out, you simply cannot act like everyone's out to get you, and that goes for everyone here in the Emerald City. Especially the ones who've kicked your ass."

Joey was about to turn around to speak to the waitress again when Ben sucker punched him right in the belly. He gasped and lifted his head to look at Ben, who then punched him right square in the nose. Dazed, Joey fell out of his chair onto the floor.

"Oh, fuck, Joey!" Frankie cried out as he lunged down to him.

"Get him out of here!" one of the patrons shouted. Joey gasped; every breath in his lungs was agonizing. It felt as though he had a balloon in his stomach: every inhale felt like a inflation of it. Frankie and the waitress dropped down to the floor to help him. He fluttered his eyelids and rubbed his nose, which throbbed with pain, perhaps more than his stomach. He sniffled; even with the swelling feeling inside of his chest, he could still breathe.

He heard Ben making angry noises as he was extracted once again. But he couldn't see where they were taking him.

"Are you okay?" the waitress kindly asked Joey.

"I was given nipples, and I'll be damned if I don't show 'em off," he sputtered as he rested a hand on that soft part of his stomach, right where Ben punched him.

"Yeah, he's alright," Frankie assured her with a chuckle. "He's a hockey player, so he's pretty tough."

They helped Joey back into the chair by the bar. He ran his fingers through his black curls and struggled to breathe. His chest heaved as though he had run a mile. His head spun and his nose and his stomach ached.

"Where'd he get you?" asked the waitress. "You feeling alright?"

"He got me right in the belly..." Joey let out a low whistle. "I think—toast'll settle my stomach."

"I'll have a Denver omelette," Frankie asked her.

"Okay," said the waitress with a kind look on her face. "Keep an eye on him, though."

Joey rubbed his eyes and the pain in his nose began to wane away: his stomach ached more and he knew he would have a bruise there soon enough.

"The day that guy has kids is the day we're all fucked," Frankie grumbled as he took another sip of coffee.


	22. down by the water

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"That blue eyed girl, she said 'no more'.  
>  That blue eyed girl became blue eyed whore.  
> Down by the water."_  
> -"Down By the Water", PJ Harvey

Once they had eaten their breakfast, albeit with a bit of struggle after the scuffle, Frankie led Joey outside of the restaurant to the gray dreary morning. The rain that had come in overnight waned away into a soft mist that emerged from the Puget Sound: it kissed their dark hair for a bide of good morning. Even after eating those two large slices of sourdough toast with butter and some jelly, Joey's stomach still ached and writhed from where Ben punched him. He wasn't able to check to find if there was a bruise there.

As they wandered down the street to the corner, the sound of distorted guitars caught their ear. Joey turned his head to find where it was coming from. He could hear a kid shrieking the words " _Rehab doll's got a bug that bites... she picked it up in a shared blood rite. Take one down, pass it around. Take one down, pass it around. Take as many down with you as you can!_ " over a thick drive of a thundering bass.

"The bands are out early this morning," Frankie remarked.

"Yeah, definitely—" Joey groaned and rested a hand on his lower belly.

"How's your stomach?"

"Still hurts. I feel better after eating that toast, but he got me way too good there."

They reached the corner and caught the sound of the waters of the Puget Sound. Joey had no idea they were that close to the harbor, but sure enough, he stared straight ahead to find the masts of the sailboats posted up at the docks. They were down by the water. 

They paused there at the corner to cross the pavement when something to the right caught Joey's eye. He recognized that coarse black hair in junction with that golden blonde hair underneath an umbrella. He tapped on Frankie's shoulder.

When he turned to pay attention to him, Joey pointed across the street. The girls looked over at them with wistful expressions on their faces.

Joey nibbled on his bottom lip. He noticed Hannah dropping her gaze to his hand on his stomach.

She peered to her right and then to her left to make sure no one was coming. She held onto the handle of the umbrella as she led Francine across the dark drenched pavement to meet up with them.

"Hi," said Frankie in a flat tone once they came within earshot there in the storm drain.

"Hi," Francine echoed in a soft voice. Hannah stepped onto the curb first followed by her. "Are you guys alright?"

"You tell me," Frankie told her.

"Frank, listen to me. Ben fucked us over."

"F—what?!"

"Why!" Joey declared.

"Well," Hannah began, "we met up with him last night after you guys had your encounter with him. And he was just—just—"

"Obnoxious," Francine filled in.

"Yes. Yes! First off, you know—he had cooled off after the fight but he started making these weird jokes to us. I'm not sure how to describe them, though. Like... it made me laugh at first. He'd throw out these little quips and offhand comments every so often that made the two of us look at each other funny."

"How so?" asked Frankie as he folded his arms over his chest.

"After a while, it got hard to understand what the jokes even were," Hannah continued. "As I was laying down the plans for glass work, he kept making these backhanded remarks like 'if I could paint, I could make something myself.' When he said that, I finally set down the pencil and said 'what the hell's stopping you? If you don't want something from me, just fucking say it.' And then he said something else about me and Joey, and I told him to get the hell out."

"They got into an argument," Francine added. "He was yelling, actually yelling at her. I finally got in between them and I told Ben to get the fuck out or I'd call the police. We told him to leave and he didn't listen."

"I actually went over to the phone and picked it up," Hannah pressed on with a slight break in her voice. Joey gaped at her looking down at the sidewalk. The pain in his belly meant nothing at that point.

She sniffled and looked on at his hand there on his waist.

"Got a tummyache?" she asked him in a soft voice.

"Ben socked Joey right in the belly," Frankie explained in a single breath.

"Aw, baby." Hannah knitted her eyebrows together and handed the umbrella to Francine. She extended her arms towards his slim waist. He fingered the spot on his shirt right above his belt.

"Right here. Totally sucker punched me in a restaurant. I tried to talk some sense into him and he didn't listen." She rested a hand on that spot and gave him a little loving pat. The mist from the clouds picked up into a denser rain and wet the crown of her head; she brought her lips to his.

"My poor baby—I'm so sorry," she whispered into his face.

Francine turned to Frankie as she brought the umbrella over his head to protect him.

"Did he get you?" she asked him.

"Nah, he almost did, though. Last night after the fight, we ran into him at that restaurant and he tried to come after us with a broken beer bottle."

Francine gasped.

"Yeah, it was scary," Frankie told her as she put her arms around him and kissed him on the side of the face.

"I feel terrible," she confessed. "We tried to say 'no' to him and he refused to listen."

"Yeah, some diatribe about his wasting his whole life to pleasing people or something like that," Hannah recalled as she ran her hand on Joey's waist to help with the pain.

"He threw that at us, too," he told her.

"So you guys ran into him?" she asked.

"Yeah. I'm guessing right before he met you ladies, too, because it was right after we did our thing with him."

"Well, if I see him, I'm gonna try and knock him down a peg," Hannah vowed to him. She sealed that with another kiss on Joey's lips as the rain washed away her tears there down by the water.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics to Rehab Doll by Green River!


	23. a lot more chocolate

“I wish there was something I could do,” Hannah told Joey as she kept her hand on his belly.

The four of them had made their way back towards the hotel, where there stood a small chocolate shop off to one side. Even as they took their seats next to the window to watch the rain fall upon the sidewalk outside, she never moved her hand from the top of his hip. Once they took their seats there at the table, she rested her hand back onto his stomach.

“Something you could do aside from whomp up Ben's volatile ass?” Frankie teased her from across the table.

“Yes! You know, I was thinking of trying to talk some sense into him, but I think that might be moot at this point.”

Her hand caressed over Joey's flat stomach to ease the pain.

“Let's try and forget about him for a bit, though,” Francine suggested as she snuggled next to Frankie; he put his arm around her and held her close to the side of his chest.

“Frankie and I were walking along the sidewalk and we heard some music on the way to the corner,” Joey recalled.

“We are in a fertile scene for music and art,” Hannah pointed out as she gave him another gentle caress followed by a loving pat.

“And chocolate,” Joey added with a mischievous smile on his handsome face.

“And chocolate! Who wants some? It's on me.”

The four of them spent the day rekindling the flame between them. They frequented the chocolate shop a few times throughout day because Hannah knew some dark chocolate would ease the wounds on their spirits and also the bruise on Joey's belly. She gave him a hug around his waist at every whim given he still complained of where Ben punched him. Francine often held Frankie's hand at every whim to heal where he had smacked Ben silly.

They caught up with the band they had heard earlier, which they found christened themselves as Green River, playing in a narrow alleyway with nothing more than their shabby looking instruments and tiny cheesy amps. They had been playing since the morning hours, even with their massive teased up hair and haphazard wardrobe.

Frankie made a joke that they were more crazy with their clothes than Anthrax themselves.

The four of them congregated near the side of the small crowd that stood there in the light mist of the rain to watch them play. Hannah put her arm the small of Joey's back and slid her hand into the back pocket of his jeans. She pulsated her fingers to give him a gentle squeeze; he squirmed at the feeling but he missed it even if it was just for a night. She ran her hand along the seat of his pants.

He thought back to when they were in Hershey, Pennsylvania for her birthday with the Franks there next to them. It was more intense than what had happened last night. At least here they were trying to forget about someone and not run from them.

The front man of Green River, a gangly boy with smooth shoulder length blond hair, screeched into his microphone but it was that lovely guitarist with a short bob of hair atop his head and the bass player with long poofy hair underneath a knit cap that caught their attention. They were tight, tighter than the skin on a ripe apple; Frankie and Joey glanced at one another and gave each other a nod of the head.

“Those two guys,” Frankie declared over their raucous wall of sound.

“I know!” Joey followed up with a lopsided grin on his face. “They're damn good!”

Hannah nestled closer to him as the mist caressed over their dark hair. If only they had a cup of that authentic Seattle coffee to go along with all of that lush chocolate—and if only they could have a lot more of that chocolate to top it all off!

Joey kept her close to his body and rested his hand on the back of her head to feel her coarse hair. There was nothing more he wanted than to be there with her forever.

But then she pressed a finger to his dark lips and leaned in closer to his ear.

“Hang tight, baby doll—I'll be right back.”

Joey gave her a wistful look as she let go of him and weaved through a few people. He looked down at the button of his jeans and sighed through his nose. He hunched his shoulders and stuffed his hands into his coat pockets. Frankie and Francine seemed to be enjoying themselves as he put his arms around her shoulders and rested his chin on her right one; she clasped onto his wrists as they slid down onto her chest.

Joey thought of Hannah's breasts and how much he wanted to feel them against the palms of his hands again. There was no way Ben could be so cruel towards that chest, not just hers but Francine's as well. The thought of him made him ball his fists inside of his coat pockets. But there was nothing he could do about it right then: Ben had disappeared into the city, and hopefully for good.

He turned his head to find her walking towards him with paper cups with accompanying lids in either hand. She handed him the one in her left hand.

“Coffee?” he asked her with that lopsided smile returning to his face and Green River came to the end of their song.

“Hot cocoa. They didn't have coffee but this should help your tummy, though. Also—Francine!”

She turned her head to her best friend with a quizzical look on her face.

“We've gotta get back to the gallery,” she told them over the bout of silence.

“Why?” asked Francine with a raise of her eyebrows.

“I'll explain on the way there.”


	24. back to the gallery

Hannah drove them back to the art gallery there in Georgetown, and the whole entire time Joey wondered what was going on there. Although she had promised to explain to Francine on the ride there, not once did she open her mouth for such a thing. That is, until Frankie pointed it out to her when they were about a block away from there.

“Alright, so Ben caught me there at the gig to tell me he’ll be at the gallery,” she said, “about what for, he didn’t explain.”

“So we’re supposed to meet up with him for him to explain it to us?” Francine followed along.

“Exactly! Which makes me wonder what it is that he wants to tell us...”

Her voice trailed off as they reached the curb outside of the gallery; they piled out of the car into the dreary gray morning. She led them into the front room where Ben awaited them. He looked as though he hadn’t slept a wink the night before granted from the dark circles underneath his eyes and the washed out look in his skin, which in turn made Joey stifle a laugh. But at the same time he had to shake his head at the same time.

Hannah pressed her hands to her hips once the door was closed behind them.

“Alright, Ben, what do you want from me?” she demanded.

“Well, first of all, I want a word alone with both you and Francine,” he told her in a strict tone of voice.

“No,” Hannah retorted. “No way in hell.”

“Yeah, we’re not falling for that shit again,” Francine joined in as she took a step forward. He turned his head to look at the glass pieces on the wall, in particular the black one of two creamy white hands hanging in repose next to each other. Joey scanned that one for himself: he noticed the entity on the right had a silver bracelet on the wrist.

It was her and him about to hold hands with each other. She had crafted a full on glass piece, which she had titled “Johannesburg” after the nickname the Franks had thrown at them in their getaway in Hershey.

“Also, Francine called in some help,” she continued, “seeing as our boys—“ She swallowed. “—did what they could to convince you but it wasn’t enough.”

Francine craned her neck to call out to the rest of the room behind him.

“Come on out, fellas!”

Silence. And then, wrapped in their windbreakers and big heavy black boots, Scott, Charlie, and Dan emerged from the back doorway.

“What the fuck’s going on?” Ben demanded as he realized he was surrounded.

“Ben, you need to stop,” Hannah insisted. “You’re not fooling anyone with this hard nosed attitude and your horrible habits. And the people you are fooling are just as shitty as you.”

“Yeah, you’re kind of taking the whole local scene thing way too seriously,” Dan joined in. “We’re all supposed to support each other.”

“Also, you wanna be in a band?” Scott challenged him. “Be nicer to your fans and people who take an interest in you. You’re not going to get very far by being a dickhead all the time.”

“Yeah, you still can play it loud,” Charlie joined in, “and you can still kick some serious ass, but you’re not gonna get very far.”

“And they’re sayin’ that from the fact this is their first band, too,” Joey pointed out.

“Yeah, Joe’s the only one of us who’s gotten his hands dirty,” Dan added. “He’s seen the underbelly more than us. He’s laid down in it.”

“That being said, you’ve got some nerve beating on our singer like that,” Scott warned in a low voice. Charlie cracked his knuckles.

“By the way, Hannah!” he spoke out of the blue.

“Yes, Charlie!”

“How much for these balls over here?”

She peered over at the six blown glass orbs on the shelf on the right side of the room, away from the blank stretch of floor around them. Each of them were a medley of two colors, beginning with red and orange, and ending with violet and pink.

“Some more of Joey’s balls? Forty bucks apiece.”

“Holy _shit_!” Charlie gaped at her, and she shrugged.

“Lot of money in glass,” she pointed out, “that’s why I usually save it for special occasions.” She then glared at Ben. “And apparently some people didn’t get that memo, nor do they understand how art works.”

He sneered at her, but it meant nothing at that point.

“Can we get him already?” Frankie asked her as he peeled off his coat.

“Sick ‘em, babe,” Francine commanded as she stood back towards the door. “Just watch the pieces so you five boys don’t cut yourselves.”

“And you ladies aren’t out hundreds of dollars!” Scott exclaimed.

“Also, can we go back to New York after this?” asked Joey as Hannah locked the door.

“Of course!” she replied in a sweet tone of voice. “This dumb kid fucked me and Francine, and then he fucked us over so we’ll return there as soon as possible. We’ll be returning to Seattle when you guys go on tour again but it’ll be for different reason.”

“Also, Hannah?” Joey said again.

“Yes?”

“I love you more than anything.”

“I love you, too, baby.”

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” Ben griped.

“Oh, shut up!” Frankie exclaimed as the five men pounced on him.


	25. another letter

_October 22, 1986_.

“It's good to be home,” Joey muttered as he lay down on his back. It was good to be sleeping in his own bed yet again, despite it being so late at night. They had taken the red eye back to Rochester after spending the rest of the week there in Seattle. Might as well, given the city itself was quite lovely and the scene there flourished more than the one in upstate New York. The five of them each had their eye on that little band Green River as well as another one called 10 Minute Warning which played their last show ever: one of the members, whose name was Duff something or other, announced he would be flying down to Los Angeles by Halloween to form a new band for himself.

He rolled his head over the pillow to check the time there on the nightstand. Almost midnight.

He could scarcely shake the sight of the fight from his mind. By some miracle, neither of the five of them walked away with any cuts despite Ben shattering a hundred dollar sheet of glass on the floor and using a couple of shards which he threatened to slice up Charlie and Frankie with.

He laughed at thought of Dan and Scott leaping onto his back to stop him. That was perhaps the best part of that scuffle. The worst thing that happened to Joey himself was when Ben almost kicked him right in the knee to knock him down, but he was stopped right in his tracks when Hannah subdued him with a kick right square in the crotch.

If only that happened when they were in Hershey and those reporters came after them.

Joey put his hands underneath his head: he let the bottom of his button up shirt rise up from his waist a bit. He took one look down at the sliver of skin there in between the hem and the band of his jeans and frowned.

He still ached there a bit; he moved his hands down to the bottom buttons and undid them for a look there. That faint dark mark right above his belly button made him wince.

Even though it was late, he yearned to call up Hannah just to give him a kiss there. But then again, he knew she wasn't even up.

There was another letter she had shared with him when they returned to New York.

Something about Ben wishing to call the whole deal off because he saw a dark haired guy giving him a dirty look in the dirty bar in downtown Rochester. He couldn't remember it in full detail. He cleared his throat but he was too tired to fetch a glass of water for himself.

At least he hadn't been singing his heart out again.

All he could do was think of Hannah herself and sing “Oh, Sherrie” to himself as he fell asleep.


	26. epilogue, part one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rewrite of sex and candy; enjoy! xoxo

_April, 1985. Oswego, New York_.  
“Hannah—check it out, baby doll.”  
She lifted her head from Joey's chest to examine the beams of golden orange sunlight radiating through the trees and over the surface of the lake beyond them. Hannah lowered her gaze to the drops of dew on the fresh green grass to the side. They had made love for another hour there in the quiet place, and she had dozed off there in his arms. Everything was so clean and crisp; when she stared straight ahead, she was met with his chest and his oval face, the latter of which was partially cast in dark shadow like the Phantom of the Opera. She raised a hand to stroke his chin and the smooth olive skin there.  
His deep brown eyes gazed back at her, digging deep into the tapestry of her being. His face never looked softer or more relaxed. His body was as silky and warm as ever, slender and yet decadent like a fresh warm skinny latte underneath her thick, full body.  
His eyelids sank low and his dark lips parted just a hair, but it was enough for Hannah to inch closer to his face. That little piece of skin underneath his chin looked delicate and smooth, perfect for a sweet little kiss, or maybe a couple. She put her arms around his neck and kissed him on the lips, and then she gazed into his eyes. Seducing and enticing her inside once again.  
Hannah stared into his face for a second before she pushed a strand of hair out from his face. He tilted his head back as she did it: he showed off his shapely neck and his Adam's apple all the while. She couldn't help but move her lips to his throat. He gasped and held perfectly still right there: Hannah could feel his heart pounding harder inside of his chest as he breathed heavier and faster beneath her.  
“You've got the butterflies,” she whispered in between kisses. She kissed him right at the base of his neck; his knees shifted beneath her. She could feel him breathing heavy underneath her. She kissed him again on the side of the neck and he let out a moan as light and soft as the gentle breeze emerging through the trees.  
“How's that make you feel, baby?” she whispered into his ear before she gave him another little kiss, as light as a feather upon his soft skin. He didn't reply, but rather responded with a gentle groan through his teeth. He squirmed beneath her, but she had a hold on him. She weighed him down so there was no getting away from her or getting out from underneath her. His fingers rode upon the small of her lower back and down onto her ass. He wanted to finger her again: she was sure of it even if she had her pajama bottoms in the way.  
“Bad boy,” she whispered into his ear. “You're a bad boy. Just for that—”  
Hannah lifted herself off of his chest and opened up the buttons on his shirt so she was met with that smooth light brown skin. She lowered back down to his chest for a line of even more gentle kisses, each one coaxed a light groan from him. She reached his waist and that little bit of hair growing around his belly button. She pressed her lips to the skin but she left them relaxed for a lazy type of kiss right on his stomach. Keeping her mouth there, she opened her lips so her teeth pressed against his skin.  
“What're you doing?” he blurted out in a broken voice. “What—”  
Ever so gently, careful not to hurt him, she ground the edges of her teeth upon his skin. He gasped even when she persisted. After a couple of light nibbles from him, Hannah lifted her mouth for a light sucking of his skin. His chest heaved some more. She slipped out the tip of her tongue onto the same spot.  
He writhed underneath her but she kept at it. She nibbled again, this time a little bit more on the firm side. He gasped again but followed it up with a light moan from his throat. She sucked on his skin again, and she sucked a little bit longer than before. She soon puckered her lips for a kiss on the spot, and then gritted her teeth again for another light nibble.  
“Okay—” he grunted out, his chest heaving even harder as if he had been running a marathon. “Okay—this is—this is getting really hot—oh—oh shit—” Hannah opened her mouth again, this time for another lush licking of his skin. He really loved that.  
“Hey—Hey—okay, okay—Hannah—Hannah, babe—fucking hell!” He burst out laughing and followed it up with a low, guttural moan, so loud that he could perhaps wake the neighbors nearby. She nibbled on him again, before she gave him another light kiss followed by another nibble. Joey groaned again: he had to be coming any time now, if not the next time she nibbled on his skin. She licked him again, like she would with a French kiss, and she felt something firm underneath her chest.  
“Think I better stop now,” she teased him as she retracted her tongue.  
“I can't—I can't—I fucking—fuck—Jesus—” Out of breath but hot and bothered nonetheless, Hannah watched his whole body relax right there underneath her. He lay the back of his head against the branch behind him and closed his eyes.  
“—fucking shit. That was... that was...”  
“Sexy?” she filled in for him.  
“Fucking... fuck—” He could hardly speak. Hannah had rendered her boy to a sputtering, stuttering hot mess of a human. “—Jesus, that was hot as holy hell. That was... that was unreal. Being down there by my groceries added something else to it, too.”  
She bowed her head to plant a couple of kisses right on the bright red mark she had left there on his skin. She lay a hand on the ground next to his hip while she lifted her other hand to caress his belly button.  
“Yeah, it's pretty hot down there isn't it?” he asked him, still breathing heavy.  
“You have such a beautiful belly. God, it's like silk. The finest silk crafted from the heart of Italy made even more toothsome from spending some time in the Iroquois nation. As smooth and delicate as melted butter upon my tongue. I feel kinda bad for biting you.”  
“Wha—What?” He ran his fingers through his bangs and the hair on the side of his head.  
“Oh, you know.” She picked herself off of his thighs to free his erection and let his thighs relax without the weight of her on top of them. She returned her fingers to his waist. “You've got such a gorgeous tummy and I have to admit... I feel bad. I've been bad, Joey. So bad. I bit your beautiful body.”  
The heaving in his chest eased up as he lifted himself up on his elbows. She thought of stripping off her top but his eyes burned right into her. His tongue slithered out over his bottom lip, the dirty nasty dog she knew so well.  
“Is that a challenge?” he asked her, his voice breaking.  
“Baby, it might be. Or it just might be the easiest thing for you to do to me ever.”  
He swallowed and she responded by climbing off over his thighs onto the grass. She suspended herself on all fours and she showed her ass to him.   
He had his fingers there.  
His hands on the band of his pajama bottoms. He peeled them back down over her butt and thighs: Hannah felt her panties slide down towards her knees. She watched his knee slide underneath her body. His hand rested upon her back, then—  
SMACK!  
He spanked her with his open hand. The sound and sudden sharp sensation beckoned a pleasured squeal out from her mouth.  
“Do it again, baby!” she begged, trying to keep her voice low to not disturb the peace even more.  
SMACK!  
“Do it! Do it! Do it! Please, baby—baby boy—”  
SMACK! SMACK!  
“You—fucking—bad, bad girl—” he grunted out as he slapped her ass again and again. “Wanna hurt me? You wanna hurt me! You wanna fucking bite me!”  
Each spank was raw, sending pulses of pain right over her back, but it felt so good, that rush of blood and adrenaline surging throughout her. Each swipe of his hand, she rose higher and higher.  
“I'm coming! Joey, baby, I'm coming!”  
“Oh, holy shit, yeah, you are!” Joey rolled her over onto her back and onto his lap; she hitched up her panties and her bottoms before she got any grass or dirt down her legs. She closed her eyes and felt her pulse race all over her body. The hand he used to hold her back caressed on the side of her head. Once she opened her eyes, he had bowed down over her for a kiss on the lips. His hair spread over the sides of her face as he opened his lips for a little extra depth. The tip of his tongue slipped in between her teeth, and then he lifted his mouth from hers. Within the curtain of his wavy black hair, he showed her a warm and sweet smile; the golden light of the sunrise behind us accentuated the skin underneath his jaw and around his neck with a warm, gentle glow.  
“Joey...” she breathed out. “Joey... baby boy... Chief...”  
“Too hot for words, is it not?” he whispered into her face, his lips still with that matte darkness in spite of everything that happened.  
“God—God damn.”  
“I should spank you more often,” he suggested as he showed her a playful smirk.  
“Not if I do it to you first,” she pointed out; she lashed her tongue out from her mouth.  
“Still bent on making my butt a li'l bigger?”  
“Very much so. I want to squeeze your little ass cheeks right now, but—phew.” She lay her head against the top o his thick sensual thighs.  
“What's today?” she asked him.  
“Uh... the eighth, I think? Oh, shit, your birthday's coming up isn't it?”  
“Next week.” She grinned at him.  
“So what you wanna do for that day?”  
“We can just hang out here. Or—ooh! I know! We can go down to Hershey and have a nice dinner and some sexy chocolate together.”  
“Go all the way down to Hershey? Damn.”  
“I've got the money, babe—we can so do it. We can so do it like how we do it again and again. Come down here and kiss me again—”


	27. epilogue, part two

_April 14, 1985. Rochester, New York_.  
After her parents treated her to a nice dinner in their own rite back at their apartment, and she told them about the trip, granted without the caveat of Joey, Hannah decided to pack up some things for the trip down to Pennsylvania. She had called up Francine and invited her and Frankie to do the double date thing again, but she had told Hannah they already plans together that week. She didn't really know anyone else who had a boyfriend, and thus she decided it would just be the two of them for the time together.  
She packed up her nice lacy underwear; if nothing, the thought of it being the two of them there made her want to bring more lingerie along. She even went out that day for some new jeans with a lower waist because she wanted to show him a bit more of her hips seeing as they liked each other's butts.  
Hannah started to think about what he had up his sleeve for her day tomorrow; after that morning there in the quiet place, she knew there was more to this side of Joey than she had originally thought before. This side to him that ran down within him like a dark and twisted well. Dark and kinky, kinky and tightly coiled as the hair atop the crown of his head.  
He still remembered to remain sweet and tender but he was devilish when he felt like it. That burning smoldering look in his eye, even when he remained idle, that very same that brought a tickling sensation into the pit of her stomach, accentuated by any time he lowered his eyelids, and puckered his lips at her, and tossed his hair back from his face. That same look that said he wanted it.  
Hannah couldn't stop thinking about that tape recorder, either. Even when she hanged it out to put in a new one, she plastered a label on the front and wrote “Joey's sexy voice” on it in magic marker before she hid it in her underwear drawer. A sweet boy like the one she had known for years need not be discovered like this. He was filthy, but he was her filth.  
Without a second more, she then turned back to her desk to her recorder with a new tape inside. Hannah bowed her head close to the speaker and pressed the record button.  
“I never thought this would happen,” she said in a loud enough voice to hear herself on the playback; “but I have returned to my roots from childhood. Back in February, I crossed paths again with an old classmate, a guy whom I had made friends with in his time of need and eventually became his best friend with time. His name is Joey. Joey Bellardini, now Belladonna. A half Indian, half Italian boy who's a little older than me, whom I met in the elementary school library of all places. And since rekindling our friendship two months ago, I found out he's in a band and they're making an album as I speak. But I have dug up something else about him. A side to him that I never thought existed before. With time and developing into the twinning twenty somethings we are now, he has unleashed this quality of... I want to say, lushness to him. He's always been kind of impudent but there's something more here. Something deep, and sensual, and sultry. It's from this I find that I am—” She cleared her throat and hesitated.  
“—I am intensely and unequivocally attracted to him. It's strange and surreal, feeling this way about my best friend. I never thought I would feel this way about someone before, much less him. But I am finding him to be incredibly...” She cleared her throat again as she felt her face grow warm.  
“...incredibly hot, especially since it's gotten rather visceral between the two of us. He's grown up and gotten so handsome now, but like I said, there's more to it. It's tender. It's alluring. It's a great wide unknown but weirdly familiar at the same time. And not to mention, it's very sexy. He's luscious, and irresistible, and flirty, and is horny even at the drop of the hat. He left a filthy recording on an old cassette tape when no one was looking, and I hope no one finds it because that's what brought us back together again.” She sighed through slightly parted lips as the warmth radiated all around her face.  
“It's at such a point now that it—it physically pains me to be away from him for very long, even if he's only an hour away from me back home, back over in Oswego. I don't know if it's pure lust and desire talking, but you know—I haven't seen him since middle school. I missed him and he told me he missed me every day after Mom and Dad and I moved over here to Rochester. An hour has separated us since we were pubescent, but it felt so far away. The other night, on the way home from the Hamptons because the fucking press was coming after us—the nosy cunts they are—we told each other that we love each other. I have a deep belief that he is really the only boy I have ever loved—aside from my dad, of course. But even after knowing him for so long, I—I have to confess that I really can't say for sure. We're going on a trip together tomorrow morning and I'll have to see how it goes between us in order to make sense of it all. I really hope this is more than just pure basal desire, especially since we've known each other for over half of our lives, even with the huge gap in between appearances. I hope this is indeed something more.”  
She stared out the window at the illuminated skyline out there. An hour away, he was back at his place and she wondered if he was thinking of her, if he was recording his thoughts like what she did. Or was he doing something else? He lived alone in that apartment complex, a tiny flat away from the world, a bachelor pad.  
The thought of him touching himself to the thought of her actually did not surprise her. If anything, the notion of him touching himself to the thought of her brought a little smirk to her face. Stroking that thick healthy dick of his with those gentle fingers… the thought of his dick tickled her right between her thighs. All that hair around his head; his slender, absolutely gorgeous body, and that voice... that Italian American accent in conjunction over that smooth, but almost cartoonish voice…  
Hannah licked her lips as she turned her head back to her dresser. She needed to hear him again.  
She took the tape out of the bottom of the drawer and slipped it back into the recorder. She bowed her head closer to the speaker to hear her voice. Every breath from his lips, every whispered word, every last part of it, crept right through her. Even with all of her questioning, and her fears, the way in which he spoke about his own dick and her tongue and her clit left her breathing hard again.  
“Joey...” she whispered once she realized the tape was nearing the end. “Joey... you sexy, sexy man. I want you.” She played the tape again to hear his voice. There was a small moment in the recording in which he let out this tiny, almost pained sounding whimper. It was a tiny moment and she had missed it all the times she played it back again, but hearing it felt akin to an epiphany. Hannah did not hear the Mr. Sassafras she knew all these years: he was dead serious. The sound of it brought another tingling feeling between her thighs accompanied with a tug inside of her chest.  
“Oh—Oh, Joey.” She brought a hand to the side of her face. The hour between them stretched for another thousand years, at least until the morning when she saw him again.

  
  


_April 15, 1985. Hershey, Pennsylvania_.  
“Phew. Christ, that was longer than I thought it'd be.”  
“For real, though.”  
They had arrived in the sleepy little town of Hershey at about five o'clock in the afternoon, six hours after she had left her parents' place there in Rochester and left to pick up Joey in Oswego at eleven thirty. They only stopped twice, the first time to fill up and the second time to take a detour because he swore he saw a member of the paparazzi behind them in the rear view mirror. The whole trip down to Pennsylvania, he wore these big rounded mirrored sunglasses, or “highway patrol” glasses as he described them. Since they were alone this time around, he lay a hand on her thigh at every whim as well as flashed her a knowing glance from under those sunglasses. Several times he kissed her on the neck, and a couple of times she had to lay a hand over his mouth to keep him back.  
“Stop it, I'm driving,” she insisted. It didn't help matters she wore a blouse with a low, scooped neckline to show off her prominent chest to him. She let him touch her chest anyway because they both enjoyed it.  
In fact, he could hardly keep his hands off of her, such that when they arrived in Hershey, he practically had lay his head down in her lap: Hannah kept a hand on his coarse hair and stroked his temple with the pads of her fingers. When the shadows began to stretch long over them and the blooming luscious landscape in the mirrors, they finally arrived at the little inn Hannah reserved for them. Once they checked into our hotel room, they both lay down next to each other there on the single queen sized bed with the plush black, white, and pink comforter with their black hair fanned out from their heads. He had taken off his sunglasses and they gazed up at the ceiling overhead.  
“Let's just lay here for a bit,” he suggested as his fingers brushed the side of my thigh. Hannah stroked the back of his hand until he turned it over so they could hold each other there.  
“Sometimes that's all we have to do, Chief,” she told him.  
“Don't tell me—” he began. I rolled my head over to look at him right in the eye.  
“Tell you what?”  
“You called me 'Chief' again. Don't tell me—you wanna—?”  
“Well, maybe in a bit,” she clarified. “Baby boy.”  
“You sure? 'Cause you seemed pretty hot for it when you picked me up this morning.”  
“Well, yeah. I saw you sitting there on the planter wall with your legs spread apart.”  
“Bad girl, looking at my schlong.”  
“You know what? I oughta just fill you with a bunch of milkshakes right now for that,” she teased him.  
“Milkshakes?”  
“Yeah. We are in Hershey, after all. The factory's not too far from here. I oughta just fill up your tummy with chocolate.”  
He let go of her so as to roll over onto his side and prop his head up on his hand. His hips curved out in such a gentle fashion up from his slim beautiful body; his thighs only added to the slight but definite shape.  
“Have you ever had chocolate gelato before?” he asked her; she gazed into his face and those dilating pupils against those rich dark brown irises, dark brown like chocolate itself.  
“Gelato? I don't think I have.”  
“It's absolutely indulgent, honey pie. Smooth as silk and soft like velvet. I should spoon feed it to you if and when I get the chance.” He showed her a bit of his tongue from in between his lips, and he raised his eyebrows as a smirk crossed his face. He ran the tips of two fingers up her arm in a gentle caress. Meanwhile, the hem of his shirt lifted off the belt of his jeans to show her a tiny sliver of skin on his hip. She thought about the bite she left on his stomach, and then she thought about the tape recorder.  
“You know,” she began, “I listened to the tape you left for me again last night after I packed up.”  
“Oh, yeah?”  
“Yeah. I was... I was kind of missing you, to be honest.”  
He tossed his hair back with a flick of his head to show her his neck again, but this proved to be a useless move because he rolled over more onto his stomach so part of him lay on me. The tip of his Roman nose loomed over her face.  
“You wanna—?” he whispered.  
“Only if you wanna, Chief. Baby boy.”  
“Your wish is my command, birthday girl.”  
“I want to fill that svelte, sexy belly of yours so full with lots and lots of pasta and chocolate, and then I want to make out with you under the stars.”  
He kissed her right on the lips and gazed into her face.  
“It's a deal, baby doll,” he breathed into her ear. “I could use something to eat anyways.”  
She rolled her eyes at him.  
“Those things are all you think about: food and sex. If you're not hungry, you're horny. And if you're not horny, you're always wanting something to eat.”  
“Well, yeah,” he retorted with a shrug and a roll of the eyes himself. “What did you expect from a Mr. Italian Stallion?” He smirked at her. “I like to keep my cup filled. Music, too, don't forget about that. I think about making beautiful music all the time, too.”  
“Was that intended?”  
“What's that?”  
“Beautiful music.”  
“Of course.” He winked at her and the smirk turned into a playful little grin. He kissed her on the lips once again, and then a second time, a third time, and on the fourth, he dropped his mouth right onto the base of her neck and down onto her chest. Hannah greeted his gentle caress with a light groan in her throat.  
“Hey, you did this for me in the quiet place,” he pointed out, “—I should do it for you, too, birthday girl.”  
“Joey—” she whispered as he kissed her all the way down her chest to the edge of the neckline. Something about his lips there tickled her. “Oh, Joey—”  
“Yeah, you like that, don't you, sexy girl...” he said to her in that husky voice again. He lifted his head to look at her right in the face with those hooded, come hither eyes. “Let's get even hotter and feed each other some chocolate.”  
“Some sexy chocolate?” she corrected him.  
“Sexy chocolate, holy fuck, yes! Sexy hot chocolate!”  
He lifted himself off of her and, picking up his sunglasses in one fell swoop, pretty much rolled off of the bed. He ran his fingers through his black curls before he rounded the bed to help me up to her feet. Hannah stood up against his body so he could look right down at the bare part of her chest. He smirked at her once again as he stared down at her bare skin, accentuated by that low neckline, pressed against his own chest. Those large breasts right there against his body.  
“God, you're beautiful,” he remarked as a soft rosy tone bloomed in his face. She giggled at him.  
“So coy,” she teased him in a husky voice of her own. “Hang on, cutie boy, let me change into something a little more comfortable...”  
She slunk past him to her suitcase, and kicked off her shoes, and stripped off her jeans right there. She opened the case without laying it flat down on the floor and took out a pair of dark gray jeans.  
“Are those new?” he asked as she snapped the case back shut.  
“Brand new.” She unfurled the jeans and stuck her right leg first, followed by her left. Hannah hitched them up as far as they could go, to about a half an inch beneath her belly button. She fixed her blouse with a tug down and then one to show him a little sliver of curved skin on her waist. He raised an eyebrow as he checked her out.  
“Oh. Oh yeah, those are—yes. Yeah, those are hot.”  
“You've officially got a hot girlfriend now, baby,” she told him as she slipped her shoes back on. “I thought you'd like these.”  
“I do—” She picked up her bag and he put his arm around her: his fingers caressed her hip. When they stepped outside, she stuck her hand into the back pocket of his jeans to feel his butt. To think they had watched each other's hips fill out back in school and now they were finding each other's asses more than attractive.  
“Let's see,” she started once she reached the street corner, “I think it's over this way, if I remember correctly—” She crossed the street to the opposite corner towards a cozy, intimate lit cafe. Joey had stuck his sunglasses back on for the remaining sunlight upon them; Hannah recognized the guy walking out of the front door, with his soft looking wavy black hair and his narrow face, and then she recognized the woman next to him.  
“Hey, Hannah and Joey!” he declared with a stunned expression on his face.  
“Hey, Frankie and Frankie,” she greeted them, slightly confused, as the two of them stepped out of the way to let them out of the cafe. “I… thought you guys had plans?”  
“We do...” Francine replied with a small smile on her face; she took her sunglasses out of her purse, “I just didn't think you guys'd be here in Chocolate Town, U.S.A.”  
“Yeah, me, neither,” Frankie added as he chewed a piece of gum and showed them a playful grin.  
“Why do you guys have your arms around each other?” she asked.  
“Oh, I was just going to give him a hug.” Hannah took her hand out of his back pocket and threw her arms around Joey, who in turn put his arms around her.  
“You had your hand in his pocket, though,” Frankie pointed out; the smirk never left his face.  
“Oh, no, I was just... wiping something off his butt,” she assured him and she brushed her hand against Joey's back pocket. He flinched a bit but he held still there for her.  
“Nah—it looked like it was in his pocket,” said Francine with a twinkle in her eye. She and Frankie glanced at one another with smirks on their faces. Hannah turned to Joey and he shrugged.  
“We might as well tell them, Hannah, babe,” he confessed in a low voice.  
“D'you seriously just call her 'babe'?” Frankie raised a hand for him. “Joe, you stud!”  
“Yeah, we're going out with each other,” Hannah told them as Joey gave him a high five.  
“Score one for the Stallions, right?” Joey cracked.  
“Aw!” Francine threw her arms around her. “You know, Frankie and I were actually talking on the way over here—we thought you guys'd make a cute couple.”  
“How'd you guys find each other, anyway?” Frankie asked.  
“Well, you know, Joey and I have known each other for years,” Hannah explained, “since we were kids, basically. Back in February, I guess he came to my art show and I found out he was there. Next thing we know, we're rekindling things and catching up.”  
“Next thing we know, we're going a little further with the whole thing,” he added, putting his arm back around her. His hand slithered down the side of her hip, and she gazed up at him.  
“You gonna do that here?” she asked him in a soft voice as Francine giggled at them.  
“What's the matter? I can't touch my girlfriend?”  
“Well, you don't want your hands full for very long do you?”  
“We were wrong, doll face,” said Frankie, still with a smirk, “they're not cute—they're sexy. They're that sexy couple who can't seem to keep their hands off each other.”  
“How'd you find out he was there, though?” she asked, and Hannah nibbled on her bottom lip.  
“It's—It's a long story,” she confessed. “And not the kind you could talk about at the dinner table.”  
“We were just gonna get something to eat here, too,” Joey joined in; he rested his fingers on the belt loop over her hip.  
“Aw, man, we just ate in this little place here,” Frankie gestured behind him. “Pretty good, and pretty cozy, too.”  
“Charlie's in here, by the way,” Francine added as he put his arm around her. “So you guys can go in and say hi to him and—and everything.” She flashed the two of them a wink.  
“I vote we call them 'Jannah', doll face,” he said to her, showing them both a big grin.  
“Jannah, or Johanna?”  
“Hey, if we go over to Harrisburg, it'll be Johannesburg,” Joey added, and the four of us burst out laughing.  
“We'll catch you sexy party people later, okay?” Francine said with hugs for them.  
“Of course!” Hannah told her as she gave Frankie a hug; he then turned to Joey for another high five and a brief hug. “We're in the city of chocolate after all.”  
“We can have a proper double date now! Alright, we'll catch you guys later—”


	28. epilogue, part three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"Midnight dancer, dance the night away..."_  
>  -"Midnight Dancer", Bible Black

“There's Charlie,” Joey nodded to the other side of the room at the large guy in the far corner of the room with headphones over his ears and thick bush of dark kinky hair down past his shoulders; Hannah made out the dimple in his chin and the solemn look upon his face. But he raised his head and nodded at them. Hannah flashed him two fingers and he flashed her a wink and a little smile.  
They both asked for cups of coffee and big bowls of pasta, and once our food arrived, Joey made a joke about chocolate sauce being drizzled all over the noodles.  
“Unless you really wanna get kinky with it,” she laughed at him.  
“Hey, after that hickey you gave me last week, I've been tryin' to make an effort to stay good.” He winked at her and then he twirled his fork in the linguine.  
“Shut up and eat your dinner then,” she teased him.  
“I'm eating, I'm eating,” he insisted as he picked up a thick wad from the bowl. “Unless you wanna do me a favor—” He handed her his fork and she took it using two fingers.  
“Good boys eat until their gorgeous flat tummies are nice and full,” she taunted him as she stuck the fork into his mouth. He took the bite with his dark eyes locked onto her. That deep stare she knew so well. It only seemed to deepen by the fact the two of them and Charlie were the sole people in there aside from the two waiters working that evening.  
Hannah handed him his fork as he never removed his gaze from her. She squirmed as she glanced down at her bowl.  
And then she realized he was looking past her.  
“Is everything alright?” she asked him. He was careful to lean in closer to her face. He swallowed his bite of linguine before speaking again, this time through gritted teeth.  
“Very slowly—look. Over. There.”  
Hannah followed his gaze as she turned her head to look over her shoulder. She turned a bit more to better follow his gaze out the front window of the cafe. Outside, standing on the opposite corner of the street, was a woman with a camera in her hand. She resembled one of those reporters from the art show in February; indeed, when she saw her, her face lit up. Hannah turned back around to face him and his stoic expression.  
“Oh, shit.”   
He nodded at her, very quick and minute nods.  
“What do we do?” she asked him in a hushed voice. His eyes darted to the other side of the room.  
“Let's see, Charlie's over there... hang tight. I have an idea.” He almost slithered out of his seat and crept across the floor to meet up with him. Hannah hung still there as she listened to them speak to each other.  
“Hannah, come on, babe—let's get out of here,” Joey called out to her.  
“Can we get these to-go, please?” she asked the waiter approaching the table. She scrambled to take out a few dollar bills for a tip; she slung her purse over her shoulder, right as Joey and Charlie congregated behind her.  
“Yeah, after what happened to you guys and Frankie in the Hamptons last month, I'm not taking any chances,” he told them as the waiter helped Hannah put their pasta in little white boxes. She thanked him and they ducked out the front door. The reporter asked Hannah a question in Spanish.  
“How do you say 'get the fuck out of the way' in Mexican!” Charlie snapped. Joey then dodged past her to the crosswalk, and Hannah and Charlie ran after him. The three of them sprinted away from there. The hotel wasn't too far from there; Hannah was mesmerized by Joey's long black hair flying behind his head. The soles of his Chuck Taylors clomped on the sidewalk ahead of them like galloping horse hooves.  
“Hey, Joe!” Charlie shouted. Joey skidded to a stop at the next corner and turned to face them with a mortified expression on his face.  
“Little bitch can't run too fast can she?” he noted, out of breath as we came within earshot.  
“My car's right over here, though,” Charlie pointed out, panting.  
“Oh, thank fuck—”  
He fumbled the keys out from his pocket as they crossed the darkening street to the little black car parked at the curb.  
“But wait, there's our hotel!” she pointed at the little inn right there across the street from us.  
“I'll get you guys—out of here if I have to, though—phew, damn, Joey.”  
“That's what I get for being a hockey player,” he said in a single breath. They reached the front door of the lobby, and before stepping inside, Hannah peeked over her shoulder at a few more tabloids coming for them.  
Once the three of them hid out in their hotel room, Joey pressed his shoulder against the door panel and turned the deadbolt and slid the chain lock over in its slot. He then lifted himself off of the door, staggered across the floor, and collapsed onto his side there on the bed. Hannah fetched up a sigh and ran a hand through her hair before she pressed both of them to my hips.  
“Well, what're we gonna do?” she asked them. “I wanted to have a nice little trip with Joey and I can't see it being peaceful if this is all we're gonna get in response to it all.”  
“Yeah, Char, we came here because it's her birthday,” Joey explained; and Charlie turned to her with a soft look on his face.  
“Oh, it's your birthday?” He put his arm around her and brought her close to him for a second. “That's really all I can do at the moment.”  
“That's okay,” she promised him.  
“I really don't know what to do, to be honest,” Joey confessed to them as he gazed up at the ceiling with a blank expression.  
“I don't blame you, babe,” she told him with another sigh.  
“Well, since it's between you guys, I think I should give you both a moment—” Charlie stepped past her to the door.  
“Be safe, please,” was the last thing Hannah told him before he left the room. She returned to Joey as he hoisted himself up on his elbows and stared at her with a wounded look on his face. She frowned; she wanted that whole feeling of staying in the quiet place once again. His gaze moved off to the side for a moment, then he returned to her, as deep and solemn as ever.  
“Joey—” Hannah could hardly speak as she moved closer to him. “Joey—Joey, why—why us—”  
“I know,” he said, his voice breaking, “—oh fuck this shit. Come here, baby doll—” He threw his arms around her and held her so close, sitting upright there on the bed. His chest was still warm to the touch: she refused to let him go, especially when he kissed her neck again.  
“I will always love you,” he breathed into her ear. “The only girl for me. The only girl who's ever made me feel sexy and better about myself and this broken body of mine.”  
She wrapped her arms around his slender waist. She couldn't help herself: she reached up his shirt to feel his skin, as smooth as silk, and his hips tantalizing, and the feel of his stomach as inviting as ever. He clasped onto either side of her face and he kissed her right on the lips. He hung there, milking that kiss for a bit before releasing and kissing her again. He kissed her several times before he sank down to the bed again. Hannah followed him down.  
Joey opened his legs to make room for her between his thighs. She ran her hands up his back and then around his sides towards his stomach. His fingers snaked through the roots of her hair. He reached down to unhook her bra. She leaned back to take off her blouse and lay it down on the bedspread next to them.  
“Let's do it, babe,” she told him as he unbuttoned his jeans. She lunged down for him with her lips open for him. Joey lay flat on his back so she could reach down inside of his underwear and right between his legs for his length. She caressed his flesh with the pads of my thumb and two fingers. She loved him so much that looking into his big deep brown eyes coaxed that sensation between her thighs again. He tilted his head back to show her his throat and his Adam's apple: she kissed his neck several times before he let out a soft, but agonized groan.  
“Don't leave me, please,” he begged to her.  
“I'll never leave you even if it killed me, my love,” she vowed as she kissed the tip of his nose and then those sensual dark lips. “I'm yours forever.”  
He clasped a hand to the back of her head so as to hold her close to his own face and his neck. They both undid their pants but neither of them felt like having a little fun there on the soft bedspread. Neither of them wanted to stop being sexy while staying best friends all the while, either. There was a point in which he sniffled and a voice emerged in the back of Hannah's head, one that sounded like her own:  
“They're gonna have to do better than that.”  
Hannah snapped her eyes shut to keep herself away from the outside world. To have Joey with her in the quiet place again, the place where they both knew was safer and calmer: just two kids hidden away from the cruel world and huddled up against the cold lake effect winds. But then she heard the words again, and still in her own voice:  
“They're gonna have to do better than that.”  
In fact, when she heard it, she opened her eyes right as a tear balanced itself on her eyelashes. He fetched up a heavy sigh to keep the tears at bay, but then he spoke again.  
“I have an idea. It might get the both of us into a fuckload of trouble down the river but it can keep us together, though.”  
“I'm up for anything, baby,” I confessed with a sniffle  
“How 'bout—we make it look like we're dating the Franks. You know, you with Frankie and me with Francine. It's not ever gonna be legitimate, but if we could probably talk them into it, and put up a facade of sorts, we can keep our passion here intact.”  
She lifted her head to look up at him: he lifted his head to look at her with a reddened tint to the whites of his eyes.  
“That's—” she began with another sniffle. “—actually not a bad idea. Like, we can switch it up and fuck around with the paparazzi that way.”  
“I mean, they will literally take anything seriously,” he added as he wiped his left eye with the back of his hand.  
“We can—We can talk to them about it,” she followed along. “I mean... they said we're a sexy couple after all. I hope they go along with it, though…”  
She put her hands upon his waist again, right on his skin.  
“Your tummy is still so soft,” she sputtered out. “Soft and warm.”  
“I'm all full of pasta, baby doll. That—fucking tasty ass pasta. I still didn't get any chocolate, though, God dammit.”  
Voices floated in from the hall outside of our room.  
“Speak of the devil,” she began; she picked up her blouse and her bra, and she climbed off of him.  
“It's totally a gamble,” he said in a broken voice; his fingers fondled over the head of his dick to slip it back into hiding. “Probably more so than when I left that recording, and I didn't even know if that was you in there.” He zipped up as she tugged down on her blouse and rounded the foot of the bed to fetch her jeans.  
“Well, they're out there right now,” she pointed out once she slipped her shoes back on, “so it's not like we have to hunt them down in town.”  
He sighed again and tossed his hair back. Hannah reached the door first so she turned the deadbolt and slid over the chain in the slot. She swung it open to find the three of them congregated right there right before us with serious expressions on their faces.  
“Fuck yeah, we'll do it,” said Frankie with a nod. “We'll do the switch with you guys.”

 _April 15, 1985. Hershey, Pennsylvania_.  
Francine told Hannah she and Frankie found a little candy shop not too far from the hotel, and lucky for them, they could go in there late at night when no one was looking. The five of them camped out in the hotel room until about ten thirty at night: at that point, Charlie assured them that the coast was clear and they sneaked out through the front lobby once again.  
It was a crisp, still night, silent and almost totally dark except for the glimmering lights of Harrisburg about fifteen miles away, which cast a soft orange glow over the otherwise black sky. Hannah walked side by side with Frankie while Francine strode alongside Joey; Charlie meanwhile felt like an escort, as he walked right behind them with his hands stuffed into his jeans pockets and his bushy hair cast a dark shadow over his pale face. To make it look real, Hannah put her arm around Frankie's lower back and he did the same for her. Francine, on the other hand, set hers on the middle of Joey's back. Not too casual but none too platonic, either.  
She guided them over to this cute little candy shop on the corner which resembled a western type saloon on the outside but shone bright white light over us as they entered from the night. Out of the corner of her eye, Hannah spotted Charlie's car parked adjacent to the corner. Once they stepped inside, she noticed the side door on the other side of the room.  
Lining the walls of the shop were wide, waist high wooden barrels, each of them filled with all manner of chocolate, in different flavors and shapes. Joey stood before a barrel filled with heart shaped candies, each of them wrapped in hot pink tin toil. He held one in between his index finger and his thumb; Hannah approached him as he turned it upside down with the help of his middle finger. He glanced over at her with a raised eyebrow, and a lick of his lips, and a glance down at her chest.  
He had said he had taken a gamble, and here he was taking another one with her, summed up by that ace of spades bite of chocolate in between his fingers was everything to the other three members of our happy little party. She knew that since the night they crossed paths again he had worked from his instinct, from the very heart of the quiet place. But even in the midst of the tapestry of the dark night overhanging rural Pennsylvania coupled with the paparazzi hot on their tails, she knew things were about to turn utterly torrid between the two of them.  
“You want some chocolate, Joe?” Francine asked him from behind a display full of large lollipops.  
“Uh, yes, please—babe,” he replied with a bit of reluctance and a nibble on his lip. She picked out a big lollipop before joining him at the one barrel.  
“How 'bout you, Hannah?” Frankie approached her with a genial look on his face.  
“Oh, yeah, of course.” She watched Frankie use the metal scoop there on the side of the barrel as she held a clear plastic bag open for him. After two scoops of diamond shaped chocolates wrapped in bright red tin foil, he leaned closer to her ear and gestured for her to come even closer.  
“Charlie told me to make it look really legitimate we should kiss,” he whispered. “I guess it was actually Francine's idea.”  
“Makes sense,” she replied; he gave her another scoop and hesitated.  
“How's that?”  
“Literally the perfect amount,” she confirmed as she tied off the top. The two of them headed over to the register as Charlie picked out a big round rainbow lollipop for himself.  
“I've got it, I've got it,” Francine was assuring Joey as she took her wallet out of her purse.  
“Buncha cute couples here lately,” said the girl there at the desk; Francine weaved in between Hannah and Frankie. He turned to her as she set her candies down on the top of the counter and took out her wallet.  
“You sure you got it?” he asked as he reached into his pocket.  
“Of course, babe,” she told him and he winked at her.  
Hannah and Francine both paid for their chocolates, and they even paid for Charlie's lollipop. Once they had stepped away from there, Hannah caught Francine giving Joey a little kiss on the cheek.  
“What is he, your grandmother?” Hannah teased her. “Check this out—come here, Frankie—”  
She put her arms around his waist and opened her lips like she would for Joey. She closed her eyes at the taste of his lips and the feel of his chest. Even though he was warm in his own rite, he didn't feel soft like Joey, but rather tight and even chic. She felt his hands on her lower back; his hips brushed against hers. They hung there for a moment before she let go of him. She opened her eyes to his hair on his side of his head shielding them. He stared back at her with a fierce glimmer in his eye for a moment before he flashed her a wink.  
“Oh, shit, not the paparazzi again,” Charlie groaned next to them. “I see them coming—we gotta go.”  
“You guys have a good night,” the girl at the counter told them.  
“You, too,” said Joey in a broken voice. He led them out of the side door to the street and the safety of Charlie's car. He muttered under his breath about something as he jingled his keys.  
“Kinda hard to do this when it's dark and you've got a big ass lolly in your hand—” He was cut off by a flash of bright white light on the corner.  
“FUCKING SHIT!” Frankie shouted. Charlie unlocked the door and flung it open. He pressed the button unlocking the rest of the car. Francine dove into the front seat next to him while Joey, Frankie, and Hannah ducked into the back. Joey had just put his feet into the car and yanked on the door handle when there was another jingling.  
“—shit, God dammit, I dropped the keys!” Pale yellow light from the overhead ceiling light cast over the interior of the car to help them. Charlie ducked down underneath the steering wheel. “Got 'em!”  
“Turn off the light, Frankie!” Joey and Hannah shouted in unison, and Francine switched off the light. More jingling, then the car roared to life. They sped forward down the side street into the darkness.  
“We're gonna have to make a little detour, you guys,” Charlie announced as they hung a left down a narrow street. “We're in a small town—you know, it's not like we're in New York City where you can slip into anonymity easily. We're too far away to go back to Oswego and Syracuse, too.”  
“What're you saying, Char?” Frankie asked him.  
“Harrisburg. It's like ten minutes away, so we can get back easily.”  
They wound their way to the outskirts of town. The headlights shone over a sign directing them to Harrisburg.  
“But why Harrisburg, though?” Frankie demanded. “Can't we just drive around in circles and lose 'em that way?”  
“If we do that, they'll catch up with us way too easily,” Charlie pointed out as he peered over his shoulder. “We've gotta blend in—”  
“Hey, dude, watch the road,” Joey warned him.  
“They're parasites, Frankie—we've gotta leave for a bit so they'll lose track of us—”  
“WATCH THE ROAD!” That had to have been the one time Hannah ever heard Joey raise his voice.  
“LOOK OUT!” Francine shrieked.  
“Holy shit!” he yelped out, and they skidded to a stop as they hit the person so hard that they rolled up onto the hood and onto the pavement; they all nearly slid forward in the slick seats.  
“Hang on, everyone!” Francine declared. She gaped over at Charlie.  
“Are they okay?” Hannah squeaked out. In the dim light, she noticed Joey rolling down the window. He caught a piece of paper in his hand before it hit the ground. The guy said something to him.  
“Over my dead body, you scumbag,” Joey scoffed as he pulled his arm back into the car. The guy said something.  
“Suck my dick, you little bitch—” He was about to tell Charlie something when the guy said something else. He returned to the window to hear it again.   
“Yeah—Yeah, well, all you boring fucks can kiss my bumble fuck Iroquois ass for all I care—I'm taking this, by the way—step on it, Charlie.” They darted away from there and onto the highway. Hannah glanced over at Joey as he held the piece of paper close to his face. He rolled his eyes, and folded up the paper, and tucked it into his jeans pocket.  
Within time, the streetlights of the bridge outside Harrisburg entered our view. Charlie took the first exit to the side of town: the streets were alive even with the night. Hannah glanced over at Frankie and the golden light of the street bathed over him and his arm rested upon the top of the door panel. She glanced at Joey and the same light accentuating the darkness of his black hair and the narrow features of his face.   
Charlie then took another side street.  
“Ah! Here's a coffee shop. We can hide out here for a little bit.”  
They parked at the curb before a small, bright lit cafe nestled in between a bar and a narrow alleyway; next to the alley stood a tattoo parlor closed for the night. The five of them climbed out into the dark, slightly warm night for a bit of late night coffee. The girls stood there on the sidewalk while their three boys went inside.  
“That was insane,” Francine remarked.  
“Yeah, I'll say,” Hannah replied. “At least it was just another tabloid and not an innocent pedestrian.”  
“No, I mean, when you kissed Frank. That was—” She showed off a mischievous grin. “—that was nuts.”  
“Well,” Hannah said with a shrug, “he told me to make it look legitimate, I had to do something like that. I guess it was Charlie's idea.”  
“Wow, that was quick,” Francine noted as Frankie and Charlie stepped out of the coffee house with little dark green cups in both of their hands. Charlie handed Hannah the one in his right hand. Joey held the door for an old man before he headed towards Hannah.  
“Cheers,” she told him, and they tapped the edges of the lids together before they took a sip in unison. Frankie, Charlie, and Francine chatted about something; she burst out laughing. It was as if the press never hounded after them, nor did we hit that guy. Joey lowered his cup and gestured for her to move in closer.  
“I'll admit it,” he began, “and Charlie agreed with me on this, too—seeing you kiss Frankie was pretty hot.”  
“Francine told me that, too. I guess it was quite the sight to see.”  
He showed her a little smirk before he blew into the slit in the lid.  
“You know that piece of paper I caught after we hit that guy?” he asked after taking another sip. “The one I put in my pocket?”  
“Yeah?”  
“It was a claim saying that I'm cheating on you. Like we broke up and to get back at each other, we're dating our best friends.”  
I rolled my eyes at that.  
“I mean, really,” he continued with a look of disgust.  
“What do you wanna bet there's another one back there saying I'm the cheater?” she laughed.  
“I bet big time, baby doll. You know—” He stopped to scratch his nose with the side of his thumb. “I have to laugh at all of this.” He chuckled to himself as he took another sip.  
“Right? It's like they'll literally come up with anything just for the fuck of it.”  
He smirked and shook his head again.  
“But you know what, though? If our parents find out about all of this—which, I'm sure they will, the affair and our relationship will be all over the music magazines, and thrash metal garnering media attention now for sure—we can tell them it's bullshit.”  
“Of course. Of course.” Hannah lingered closer to him and she put her arm around his slim waist. “It kind of is bullshit, too. In a round about sort of way. We're dating but we can totally deny it and be airtight about it now.”  
“We are in Harrisburg, too,” he pointed out.  
“Harrisburg—Johannesburg, actually,” she corrected, and he held her close to his body as he leaned against the bricks.  
“Johannesburg. Well, shit.” And he burst out laughing as we tapped the cups together again.


End file.
